|
Director of Saudi Academy arrested for failing to report alleged child abuse
The director of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) was arrested last week and charged with failing to report a child abuse allegation. Abdallah I. Al-Shabnan, director of ISA, was also charged with obstruction of justice, according to a police report on his June 9 arrest. He is now out on bail pending trial and is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 1. He could not be reached for comment.Police say Al-Shabnans arrest came after police alleged he covered up an incident in which a 5-year-old girl attending the school reported that she was being sexually abused by her father. According to court papers, Al Shabnan, 52, of McLean, Va., said he didnt believe the girl and did not report the incident, instead telling the girls parents to seek counseling for her. Police said in court papers that Al-Shabnan ordered a written report about the girls complaint, which had been prepared by other school officials, to be deleted from a school computer. Virginia state law requires school officials to report allegations of abuse within 72 hours. At no time did Mr. Al-Shabnan report the allegations to any child protective agency or law enforcement agency, an affidavit for a search warrant filed in the Fairfax County Circuit Court says. He further stated that he was not aware that he was required to make such a report.
The misdemeanor counts come at a time when the private school is under heavy criticism from a federal commission and other groups over textbooks that allegedly teach violence and hate. ISA, a 900-student private school with campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax, Va., has been the subject of renewed scrutiny after an investigation by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom said it found that textbooks used in the school contained offensive passages. More than a dozen protesters lined up outside the ISA this week. The protesters, including the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, want the Justice and State departments to investigate the school. The State Department last year obtained copies of the schools textbooks but did not make their findings public. Staff and children affiliated with ISA brought bottles of water to the demonstrators, who gathered near a sidewalk in front of the school holding signs. Rahima Abdullah, the ISAs education department director, denied the allegations. Thats absolutely not true, said Rahima. What we teach here is love and tolerance. The school issued a statement saying the textbooks had been mistranslated and misinterpreted.
Posted by: Fred 2008-06-21 |
||
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=242271 |