Protecting Children Being Forced to Beg

In response to a Human Rights Watch investigation, Senegalese authorities have begun enforcing a law prohibiting anyone from forcing a child to beg. Since we released our report on widespread abuses taking place at Quranic boys’ schools, ten teachers who forced children to beg have been convicted.
In late 2009 Human Rights Watch researchers documented the system of exploitation in which boys who attend Quranic schools are forced to beg all day, seven days a week on Senegal’s streets to meet quotas for food and money set by their teachers. The teachers, known as marabouts, often live in relative affluence because they keep everything the boys (know as talibés) receive from begging. Should the boys fail to meet the quotas, they may be severely beaten by the marabouts.

Press Statement: Police assault Muslim in custody for calling them racist

After having arrested the son of Islamic Party general secretary Dr Sahib Mustaqim Bleher for calling a police officer racist when they couldn't find anything wrong with his car, Milton Keynes police abused the 19-year old law student Abdu-l-Muqtadir Mustaqim when holding him in custody for more than 8 hours without feeding him or giving him water. When he was finally released and charged with using offensive language in public as well as possession of an offensive weapon, a small ornamental Arabian-style pocket knife his father had gifted him for his 10th birthday and which he kept in his car's glove compartment, he was severely bruised in the face, the wrists and the shins and is currently being assessed at Milton Keynes General Hospital's accident and emergency department. He intends to file a case against the police and his father, who was Imam at the High Security Prison Woodhill in Milton Keynes for over eight years commented: "They have only proven the allegation of racism by the way they manhandled him today. On the one hand the police ask the Muslim community to cooperate with them in the fight on terror, on the other hand they are terrorising the community and are breaking down any remaining trust irrevocably."