They're Taking Our Children
THE AGE: West Papua's youth are being removed to Islamic religious schools in Java for "re-education", writes Michael Bachelard.

EXTRACT: ...The men who took Yope were part of an organised traffic in West Papuan youth. A six-month Good Weekend investigation has confirmed that children, possibly in their thousands, have been enticed away over the past decade or more with the promise of a free education. In a province where the schools are poor and the families poorer still, no-cost schooling can be an irresistible offer.

But for some of these children, who may be as young as five, it's only when they arrive that they find out they have been recruited by "pesantren", Islamic boarding schools, where time to study maths, science or language is dwarfed by the hours spent in the mosque. There, in the words of one pesantren leader, "They learn to honour God, which is the main thing." These schools have one aim: to send their graduates back to Christian-majority Papua to spread their muscular form of Islam.

Ask the 100 Papuan boys and girls at the Daarur Rasul school outside Jakarta what they want to be when they grow up and they shout, "Ustad! Ustad! [religious teacher]."... Read it all here » | Michael Bachelard | Indonesia correspondent for Fairfax Media | Saturday, May 04, 2013

Palestinian Martyrdom Video Aimed at Children, Says US Watchdog Group
THE TIMES: Without the subtitles, the song could almost be a sentimental tune for kids that is fast spreading round the world on YouTube. With its lyrics translated, it reveals itself as something far more sinister - an ode to martyrdom from the mouths of pre-school children.

“When we seek martyrdom, we go to heaven,” sings a pretty dark-haired little girl.

“Don’t say we are young, this way of life has turned us into grown-ups. Without Palestine, what does childhood mean?”

According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), an American organisation that tracks Islamic extremist websites and networks, the video is spreading like wildfire, with variations of the ditty scoring millions of hits in the Muslim world, and starting to spread to Britain and North America.

The IPT said that the clip was the work of a Jordan-based film company called Birds of Paradise, whose high-standard production marks “a new wave of jihadist youth indoctrination”.

The catchy tune appears designed to appeal to children and grown-ups alike, with a message of dying for Palestine. Read on and comment >>> James Hider, Middle East Correspondent | Friday, June 25, 2010

The Sick Indoctrination of Innocent Children: لما نستشهد بنروح الجنة


The Investigative Project on Terrorism: "Birds of Paradise" – Martyrdom Recruitment as Children's Entertainment >>>

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