http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4620487.ece
Devout Muslim guilty of making boys beat themselves during Shia
ceremony
A Muslim was found guilty of child cruelty yesterday for forcing two
boys to beat themselves with a bladed whip during a religious
ceremony.
Syed Mustafa Zaidi made the boys, aged 13 and 15, flog themselves on
their backs with a five-bladed implement called a zanjeer zani.
Both needed hospital treatment for cuts sustained during the Shia
ceremony commemorating the death of a grandson of the Prophet
Muhammad. Zaidi now faces up to ten years in jail.
The boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted that they
had wanted to beat themselves, but not under duress and not using
blades.
Throughout the trial at Manchester Crown Court, Zaidi, 44, insisted
that the act was part of the boys' religion and therefore not
illegal. But the jury convicted him of two counts of child cruelty.
The court was told that despite attending a meeting two days before
the ashura ceremony at which elders made it clear that boys were not
permitted to flog themselves, Zaidi was determined to make them
participate.
At the service at a community centre in Levenshulme, Manchester,
Zaidi began flogging himself. The elders asked him to stop because
they were concerned that he was harming himself. Instead, he washed
his blood from the ceremonial whip and handed it to the 15-year-old
boy.
The 13-year-old told the court that Zaidi urged them both: "Start
doing it, start doing it." Despite their protests that it would hurt
and saying, "We don't want to do it", Zaidi removed one boy's shirt
and forced him to flog himself.
The younger boy said the other "swung it once or twice and said, `I
don't want to do it any more'."
He said that Zaidi pulled and pushed him as he tried to take his
shirt off and said: "Keep doing it. This is a sad moment. Look, he's
not doing it."
Both boys said that they had flogged themselves with a zanjeer zani
regarded as suitable for children from the age of 6 in Pakistan, but
had never used the adult whip.
The jury was shown a 20-minute film of the ceremony featuring Zaidi
flagellating himself until his back was bloody and cut. The ritual
marks the death of Husayn, grandson of Muhammad and a central figure
in the Shia faith. He was killed at the Battle of Karbala alongside
72 members of his family about 1,400 years ago. Performing the matam —
self-flagellation — is believed to bring out feelings of grief at
their deaths.
Zaidi, a warehouse supervisor from Eccles, Lancashire, denied that
his actions had been wrong, saying: "This is a part of our religion."
He said the 15-year-old boy had performed a "perfect matam" and that
it was not a "stitching matam" because he did not sustain heavy
cuts. "It was an emotional time and the children were happy, they
asked for it. No one forced anyone."
He said that if he had known it was illegal he would not have
persuaded the children to take part.
After the verdict, Carol Jackson, a lawyer with the Greater
Manchester Crown Prosecution Service, said: "The CPS wishes to make
it clear that this prosecution was not an attack upon the practices
or ceremonies of Shia Muslims.
"Indeed, the prosecution relied as part of its evidence upon the
president of the local Shia community centre."
Sentencing was adjourned until next month.
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