Malaysian police said yesterday (Saturday) that they have arrested a total of 355 people as part of an investigation into hundreds of cases of physical and/or sexual abuse of children in reception and shelter homes in the Asian country.
At the heart of thisinvestigation is the business holding group GISB (Global Ikhwan Service and Business Holding), which is accused of not only running these ‘centres of horror’, but also of having links with a banned Islamist sect, Al Arqam, which has now been disbanded.
Among those arrested are GISB’s chairman and CEO, Nasiruddin Ali, and at least 30 employees of the group, always according to the police.
Various locations were raided, including charities, health care facilities, Islamic seminaries and residences.
The arrest of 171 people had already been announced on 11 September, including “ustaz” (religious teachers) and other teachers. The police added that at least 402 children were rescued after searches in 20 homes. The police believe they are children of group workers in Malaysia, explained Inspector General Razarudin bin Husain.
Initially, the group denied all allegations and even assured that it did not run the centres involved in the investigations in the states of Selangor and Negeri Sembilan (west).
Then Nasiruddin Ali admitted, on 14 September, that there had been cases of sexual abuse, “one or two cases of sodomy” in the dormitories, but denied that systematic, mass violence was recorded.
According to medical reports, at least 13 children suffered sexual violence, according to Inspector General Husain.
On Tuesday, he announced the freezing of 96 GISB accounts, containing some $124,000 (€111,000).
The scandal heightens concern about the fate of children in these homes and the oversight of charities in the country.
UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for defending children’s rights, has 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 United Nations Children’s Fund representative in Malaysia, said on Thursday.
The Arqam sect was dissolved by the authorities in 1994 as the doctrine it proposed was considered deviant, heretical. The GISB group has since been targeted by the authorities of the predominantly Muslim country.
In 2011, a scandal also erupted when it became known that he had set up a “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 asserts that it is an Islamic holding group that runs companies such as supermarkets and restaurants in various countries, including Indonesia, Britain and France.
