Yup, it's that time of the year again.  Good Old Ashura! yessireeallah, dust off those whips and chains, fond memories, clean off the dried blood, sharpen the knives and the razors - it's that bleeding time again!! Ya Ali!  The slashing, the dicing, the flagellation (is that part of their sex too? sounds familiar, no?) - ah nothing like Ashura in the City.  But what happens when the kids don't want to do it? 

A 14-year-old has told Manchester Crown Court how he and another boy were forced to flog themselves until they bled during a religious ceremony.

The teenager said Syed Mustafa Zaidi made them flog themselves with a whip which had chains and blades attached, as part of a Shia Muslim ceremony.

He said the other boy, aged 15, was also forced to do "the knife thing" in Levenshulme, Manchester, on 19 January.

Mr Zaidi, 44, of Station Road, Eccles, denies two counts of child cruelty.

The court heard how the defendant and the two boys were part of a large group of men who attended an Ashura ceremony commemorating the death of the spiritual leader of Shia Muslims.

The 14-year-old boy was 13 at the time of the alleged incident, which is said to have happened at a community centre.

He said he saw Mr Zaidi flogging himself with the whip - called a zanjeer - before washing his blood from it and handing it to the 15-year-old boy.

He told the court that Mr Zaidi was "pulling him and pushing him, 'keep doing it', telling people: 'This is a sad moment and look, he's not doing it'.

"He goes: 'I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it'.

"He kept pressuring him, make him do the knife thing, pulling him, trying to get his T-shirt off, pulling and pushing him.

"He was saying 'just do it, just do it'." (BBC)

Comments (5)

Elane said:

	... As a mother, a parent, ifn I were to have done that to my kids EVER I would have been thrown in jail, kids taken away from me FOREVER - but it's ok for the muslims to slice and dice their kids. Baptism by Blood? Oh the joys of Islam.
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Aug 20, 2008 15:20:22
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OMMAG said:

	... The ironic thing is that this is happening in Britain where the nurse nannies have their noses in EVERYONE's business pretty much all the time. How many other cases are going on without any legal repercussions?
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Aug 20, 2008 19:17:29 | url
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Donna Beach said:

	... If those kids refuse, tho, couldn't they be stoned as apostates?
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Aug 20, 2008 20:12:34
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Elane said:

	... well at the least they could be forced to whip themselves it is after all their religion and, apparently, entitled to beat themselves.
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Aug 20, 2008 20:34:32
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lucifers taxi said:

	... Are spectators permitted at these things? (For a small 'donation'- of course.) Hey- don't the Catholics do something like that?
	report abuse vote down vote up

Aug 21, 2008 02:08:10
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