Malaysian police announced on Saturday that they have arrested a total of 355 people as part of an investigation into hundreds of attacks of physical and/or sexual abuse of children in shelters in the Asian country.
At the heart of this investigation is the business holding group GISB (Global Ikhwan Service and Business Holding), which is accused of, in addition to managing these “horror centers”, having relations with a banned Islamic sect, Al Arkam, which has now been dissolved .
Among those arrested are GISB chairman and managing director Nasiruddin Ali and at least 30 employees of the group, according to police.
Various locations were raided, including charities, health facilities, Islamic seminaries and homes.
The arrest of 171 people on 9/11 had already been announced, including “ustaz” (religious teachers) and other educators. The police added that at least 402 children were rescued after searches in 20 homes. Police believe they are children of the group’s employees in Malaysia, explained its inspector general Razaruddin Hussain.
Initially, the group denied all the accusations and even assured that it did not manage the centers involved in the investigations, in the states of Selagor and Nekari Sebilan (west).
Then Nasiruddin Ali admitted, on September 14, that there had been cases of sexual abuse, “one or two cases of sodomy” in the shelters, but denied that systematic, mass violence was recorded.
According to medical reports, at least 13 children were sexually assaulted, according to Inspector General Hussain.
On Tuesday, he announced the freezing of 96 GISB accounts, containing some $124,000 (€111,000).
The scandal intensifies concern for the fate of children in these homes and for the supervision of charitable organizations in the country.
UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for defending children’s rights, condemned the “unimaginable horror” experienced by the young victims.
These children “will need medical and psychological support for an extended period of time,” Robert Gass, the representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund in Malaysia, said on Thursday.
The Arkham sect was disbanded by the authorities in 1994, as the doctrine it proposed was considered deviant, heretical. The GISB group has since been targeted by authorities in the predominantly Muslim country.
In 2011, scandal also broke out when it was revealed that he had created the “Submissive Wives Club”, a group that urged women to submit to their husbands “as if they were prostitutes” so that they would not cheat on them.
On its website, GISB claims to be an Islamic holding group that operates companies such as supermarkets and restaurants in various countries, including Indonesia, Britain and France.
SOURCE: APE-ME
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