10/17/2019 Nigeria (International Christian Concern) – On Tuesday, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, ordered the disband of extreme Islamic schools that were recently discovered to be violating human rights. Recent police raids against suspicious, abusive Islamic schools resulted in the liberation of hundreds of imprisoned innocents.
On Monday a police raid was ordered against a school in Katsina, with the objective of freeing the remaining students captive there.
Last month, another such institution in Kaduna State was breached by police forces. Officers found over three hundred men and boys chained and bound. The conditions such “students,” some as young as a mere five years old, faced were “inhuman and degrading”. The children bound there were abused, dehumanized, and some even tortured.
The reasoning behind sending students to such places was to deepen Islamic faith and practice and set them on the right path for adulthood. One man, Hassan Yusuf, was sent to the Islamic school in Kaduna. After studying abroad for some time, Yusuf returned home to Nigeria a Christian. In an attempt to re-orient his life with Islamic teaching, he was sent with the intent of deepened faith, but unlikely with intents of harm.
Not all families sending their kin to these abusive Islamic schools knew what truly awaited the students inside. Many loving parents sent their children to these specific Islamic schools, expecting them to learn the tenants of Islam and grow in their faith. When they were unable to connect with their children for months at a time, they grew suspicious.
In the aftermath of the police raids, the Nigerian government has taken custody of all those released as they seek out their families, whether in Nigeria or abroad. Teachers and administrators were placed under arrest following the raids.
For interviews, please contact Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator: press@persecution.org.
