Assalamualaikum saudara....ini adalah laporan/artikel daripada sebuah channel TV di UK...saudara boleh chek di laman www.channel4.com/news . Saya rasa ini amat penting untuk diketahui oleh semua rakyat Malaysia bahawa kerajaan kita sedang mengikut telunjuk pihak barat (KUFFAR). Saya harap pembaca dapat membuat penilaian sendiri nanti

Terima Kasih

"Terror" schools closed
World

Published: 8 December 2002
Reporter: Ian Williams

The Malaysian government is moving to shut down hundreds of private religious schools it accuses of teaching hatred. As with Pakistan and Indonesia, Malaysia has seen a mushrooming of secular schools, many teaching hardline Islam.

But the government in Kuala Lumpur is the first to try and curb their influence following disturbing evidence linking them to terror suspects.

The alleged Bali bombers are among those who studied at a small islamic school in the Malaysian village of Sungei Tiram, from where our Asia Correspondent Ian Williams now reports:

It’s Hari Raya, the Malay holiday marking the end of Ramadan, and the first time in years that Noraishah and her family have celebrated with such noisy abandon, without fear this year of upsetting their humourless neighbours.

Noraishah Wahab:
"They'd come down here on their motorbikes. They'd say 'it's too noisy, keep it down, we're trying to study."

Meet the neighbours: the Lukmanul Hakiem religious school, once home to more than 300 students, but now closed by the authorities.

One of its leading preachers was Abu Bakar Bashir, now in custody in Indonesia, suspected of being the spiritual head of a regional terror network.

And Imam Sumudra, the alleged mastermind behind the Bali bomb, was a student, as were two Indonesian brothers - also in custody - and also alleged to be part of the Bali plot.

Intelligence officials say most of Southeast Asia’s most wanted militants passed through here over the past decade.

Noraishah’s family now explore the deserted compound they once avoided, regarding it as sinister and oddball, teaching a version of Islam so at odds with their Malay tradition.

Noraishah Wahab:
"They were always urging me to cover my head. They said after you die, you'll have to explain why you didn't do it. I told them it's my choice. They'd come into our house and say it was wrong to have dolls or teady bears. When we bought the children dolls and spread them around they'd say you shouldn't do that, it's un-Islamic."

Yusaf Osman:
"It was a different sort of Islam. Their rules were very strict and not suitable for these modern times."

Noraishah Wahab:
"I saw with my own eyes, small children being forced to fast. If the children didn't fast, they'd punish them by forcing them to stand in the sun."

They say the isolated school had regular visitors from Pakistan, and bizarre night-time exercises in the forest.

Yusaf Osman:
"I saw them taking boys out at night. People said it was some sort of training. What sort of training I don't know. But they always did this walking in the middle of the night."

Noraishah Wahab:
"If i went outside to the toilet at night I'd see them walking and I'd ask my husband: 'What's out there?' He'd say: 'Shh, don't worry, that's just the neighbours."

Which is precisely the fate Malaysia’s Prime Minister now has in mind for all the country’s private religious schools.

The prime minister - giving holiday greetings at his home this weekend - believes Malaysia’s modern, enlightened Islam is under threat, and that he has to curb a system now dangerously out of control.

It may not be that easy.

The Al-Halimiah religious school in Kedah, closed for the holiday, is one of many closely linked to the Islamic opposition party, PAS.

They claim to teach practical subjects as well as religion, though the highest achievers here are sent to madrassas in Pakistan or the Middle East.

It’s one of 500 schools, attended by more than 100,000 students to which state funding is being stopped. But here as elsewhere, they’ve started a campaign for alternative funding, which could be more dangerous still.

To Dr Rosnani, from the International Islamic University of Malaysia, the biggest threat is a hardline Islam imported and funded by Saudi Arabian charities, which already have their tentacles in some religious schools.

It’s being seen as a battle for their children’s future.

Other countries have shied away from confronting Islamic schools, but faced with evidence they’ve nurtured terror suspects, Malaysia’s concluded it has to tackle extremism at its roots.

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Terbitan : 15 Dis 2002

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