Britain is debating the relevance of faith schools after a television documentary revealed that young Muslims are being taught extremist views in mosques and also face physical abuse from teachers.
The dispatches programme, Lessons in Hate and Violence, on Channel 4 on Monday night aired shocking footage of children being hit by their teachers during lessons on the holy Quran.
Students as young as 11 years were being taught by faith school, run by the Deobandis, in Birmingham hate non-Muslims and more liberal Muslims.
“The disbelievers are the worst creatures, they are the worst creatures,” one teacher was shown as teaching students.
Another group of pupils were told in an assembly at the school: “The disbelievers, they are the worst of all people. The Hindus do, they drink p***, I’ve told you this. Do they have any intellect? No.”
A teacher at a school in the Markazi Jamia mosque at Keighley, West Yorkshire, has been arrested by the police over allegations of assaults on children.
Calling for better scrutiny, British Humanist Association’s education campaigns officer Jenny Pennington said: “It is very worrying that a school that has been given a clean bill of health in this area from inspectors can teach young children abhorrent, intolerant views about people of other religions and non-religious beliefs.”
The Hindu Forum is planning to raise the issue during its regular inter-faith dialogues with Muslim organisations, including the Muslim Council for Britain.
Arjan Vekaria, president of the Hindu Forum of Britain, said on Tuesday that he was appalled by the details revealed by the documentary.
“It is very demeaning that one faith can pass judgment about another faith like,” he said, adding that the remarks were very hurtful for British Hindus, “who are hard workers and high achievers”.
Darul Uloom school in Birmingham, where teachers made offensive remarks against other religions, has denied that its students were being taught to hate other religions.
“By selectively quoting a few comments from some teachers, surreptitiously recorded over a period longer than two years, and replayed repeatedly throughout the whole programme, Channel 4 has attempted to portray the school in a light completely contrary to its ethos,” the school said, adding that the programme had put its students and staff at risk.
“Even before the broadcast of the programme, we had started receiving a barrage of hate calls and mails, threatening us with the most profane language. To that end, we have decided to bring forward our half-term week,” the schools said.
The Channel 4 has defended its investigation, stressing that it was “clearly in the public interest.”
The Deobandis, a religious movement that originated in the Indian subcontinent, control over 700 of Britain’s 1,400 mosques.
Periodically concern has been raised in the media about the influence of the curriculum in the faith schools, especially madrasas, on the radicalisation of young Muslims.
The department of education did not comment on the issues raised in the documentary, but made it clear that “any allegation of harsh physical punishment or the teaching of extremism in madrasas is very concerning.”