Pakistan - In Lahore, Muslim women slam Valentine's Day for destroying the family.

Pakistan - In Lahore, Muslim women slam Valentine's Day for destroying the family. (AsiaNews).

The goal is "to defend our homes. Secularists and liberals condemn religious leaders for their outdated beliefs, but then do not tolerate it when their daughters and sisters date. We have to save our generation and propagate the culture of honour and respect,” said Samia Raheel Qazi, president of the women section of Jamat-e-Islami (Jl), a conservative Islamist Party, during a protest in front of the Press Club of Lahore.

Shouting "Our values, our asset", women handed out leaflets and held banners against the "Western" and consumerist culture that underpin Valentine's Day.  Whilst not taking part in the rally, Catholics share the Muslim women’s family values.

The protesters gave passers-by books on the Islamic way of life, marriage, family protection, the system of values ​​and parental dignity.

The protest was held at a location crowded with sellers of flowers, balloons, teddy bears and other accessories for Valentine Day celebrations.

Protesters also plan to write to those companies that publish unethical advertising in newspapers and magazines.

For Jamat-e-Islami, Valentine's Day comes from a different and immoral culture, which threatens to undermine the basic values ​​of Islamic society. The party’s women section announced more protests in front of bookstores, beauty salons and shops.


"The use of Internet and media is harming our culture,” Samia Raheel Qazi said. “Our youth are being infected by immorality and their change in behaviour is destroying our family system.”

Canada - Police investigating Toronto Islamic school over curriculum comparing Jews to Nazis.

Canada - Police investigating Toronto Islamic school over curriculum comparing Jews to Nazis.(NP).Police are investigating a complaint about a Toronto Muslim school whose curriculum tells boys to exercise so they are “ready for jihad,” refers to “treacherous Jews” and contrasts Islam with “the Jews and the Nazis.” “Yes, I can confirm for you that a complaint has been made and our Hate Crimes Unit is investigating,” Acting Sergeant Rebecca Boyd, a York Region Police spokeswoman, told the National Post on Monday. “However, they are in the early stages of the investigation,” she added. The complaint was made by the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which found the material on the website of the East End Madrassah. The Islamic school operates out of David and Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute, a public high school in Toronto. But the complaint was made to police in York because the Islamic school’s mailing address is in that region. “We are looking into it,” said Masuma Jessa, principal of the East End Madrassah. She said the curriculum document in question had been removed from the school’s website. Later on Monday, the entire school website went offline.
The Toronto District School Board said in a statement it was cooperating with police and would “take appropriate action pending the conclusion of the investigation.” Spokesman Ryan Bird said the board could revoke a school permit if the holder was found to be promoting hatred. “The TDSB does not support or tolerate any group that promotes hatred.” The complaints concerned the school’s Level 8 curriculum, which describe historical conflicts between Muslims and Jews. It refers to “Jewish plots and treacheries” as well as “crafty” and “treacherous” Jews. 
Another section discusses jihad, which it says means “to strive for something.” But it adds that jihad “sometimes also involves fighting a war against an unjust ruler.” It then quotes Muslim scripture that says about “fighting (in the cause of Allah) is ordained unto you…” In “Sports and Jihad,” a section of the Level 7 curriculum, it says Islam encouraged boys to engaged in physical training in order to be ready for jihad, but girls were instead to stick to “hobbies” that prepare them to become wives and mothers. “To think that this is happening right here in Canada, in our backyards, in our own country where we promote tolerance, diversity, understanding, human rights, and bringing those types of concepts over the from the ancient world if you will, its just unbelievable,” said Avi Benlolo, President and CEO of the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs also raised concerns about the curriculum in a press release issued Monday, as well as in a complaint to the Toronto school board. “Using religion to promote hatred among youth is not just offensive and abhorrent – it shows a stunning disregard for Canada’s basic values of decency and tolerance,” said David Spiro, Greater Toronto Co-Chair of centre.Read the full story here.

Twelve year old Boy dies of alleged torture by Quran teacher in Pakistan

Twelve year old Boy dies of alleged torture by Quran teacher in Pakistan.(AA).The death of a 12-year-old student reported to have been tortured to death by his Quran teacher in Lahore has prompted the Punjab chief minister to call for an inquiry into the incident. Mohammad Jamil was a madrassa student where he was studying the Quran from Qari Muhammad Jameel and a teacher whose name remains unknown. The young boy is said to have been tortured by his teachers so severely that he was taken to four different hospitals by his parents for treatment for stomach pain but eventually died according to a report in the Express Tribune on Sunday. The boy’s father registered a case with the police which raided the madrassa looking for the teachers, both of whom are said to have escaped. He blames the teachers for the torture and the doctors for negligence in his son’s treatment. Reports of abuse in Pakistan’s madrassas (religious schools) are not uncommon. Last year police raided a madrassa in Karachi and found a dozen boys chained in the basement, deprived of food and forced to join the Taliban reported the Los Angeles Times in December. Earlier this month, three students of a madrassa in Kabirwala, all under the age of five, were abused by their teacher for plucking flowers at the school gardens reported the Express Tribune. The children had heavy bricks placed on them and were found by their parents bleeding. The police registered a case under the teacher. The parent of one of the students was quoted by the newspaper as saying “such a brutal person does not deserve to teach the Holy Quran.”Read the full story here.

Turkey's 'veil' coming down: Erdogan's reforms: less schooling, more Koran.

Turkey: Erdogan's reforms: less schooling, more Koran.(AM).Ankara - The goals of an education reform bill introduced by the Islamic party of Turkey's Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been characterised by opposition parties as aiming to halve the length of compulsory schooling to promote more Koranic schools and veil wearing. The opposition secular press, trades unionists and other commentators, have for a month now, but especially over the past two days, been aiming their criticisms at the Islamic tendencies of the reforms of alleged faults in the country's education system. Today the countries confederation of industry, the TUSIAD, has joined in the chorus of protest. The bill would in effect abolish the present laws obliging children to attend school for eight years, halving them to the period of primary education alone.
Although this radical move is softened by the offer of distance learning, critics are calling it an incentive to quit school, especially in the less developed eastern areas of the country, and in cultural milieu where the ban on wearing the veil inside school premises meets strongest resistance.
The ban comes from the secular, Western stamp given to Turkey's constitution in the 1930s by the country's founder Kemal Ataturk. A reduction in the number of years of compulsory education would also promote the so-called ''Imam Hatip Lisesi'', the religious Islamic schools, like the one in which Mr Erdogan was educated.
Following its third electoral victory in succession, with nearly 50% of votes cast, Erdogan's single-party pro-Islamic government has already abolished the minimum age requirement for attendance at such schools and this reform would encourage children to give up attending their secular secondary schools in favour of religious institutions which now would take over some of the functions of the grammar schools.
Some areas of the secular press, such as the daily Milliyet, as well as pro-Islamic organs such as Yeni Safak and the official mouthpieces of Erdogan's AKP party, stress how the reform aims at correcting what was in effect a penalisation inflicted on Koranic schools following the ''post modern'' military coup of 1997, which overthrew Islamic premier Necmettin Erbakan, a role-model for Erdogan. Eight years of compulsory schooling was introduced then with the aim of undermining the Koranic institutions. The reform debate opens, indeed, as the 15th anniversary of that coup approaches (February 28), the highly secular daily Cumhuriyet wryly observes.
Without returning to accusations of a 'hidden agenda to re-Islamise Turkey, Cumhuriyet links the reforms to the a proposal recently expressed by the premier ''to raise a pious generation,'' a ''religious youth''. The criticisms of TUSIAD, which is calling for the bill to be withdrawn, are based on a more technical consideration of the step backwards in the level of education of the upcoming generations. The move is seen as being linked to the increasing pressure on young girls in country areas to give up their schooling and the dangers deriving from a reduction of the age for starting an apprenticeship to eleven.
Hmmmm......In a recently announced European Union report on education, Turkey ranked near the bottom of all 33 countries included in the study due to a high percentage of dropouts, a low rate of success and a lack of qualified teachers.In the 18-24 age group with at most a lower secondary education and no further education or training, 44.3 percent of Turkish students drop out, while the average is 14.4 percent in the EU, which aims to lower this figure down to 10 percent by 2020.
In Turkey, 14.7 percent of students go on to obtain a tertiary education, which is much lower than the EU average of 40 percent.
More than 60 percent of primary and secondary school students are educated by unqualified teachers.
In 2009, only 2.3 percent of adults participated in some form of lifelong learning. In 2009, 42.1 percent of all students are low achievers in Turkey in 2009, while the EU average was 22.2 percent.Turkey was in the third place from the bottom, scoring better than Romania and Bulgaria, where almost half of students are low performers in mathematics.Hmmmm........You want a docile and easy to influence population?This is the way to go.Read the full story here and here.