WASHINGTON, Sept 14: The US State Department said on Friday that unregulated, extremist madressahs continue to flourish in Pakistan despite the government’s efforts to regulate them.In the Pakistan chapter of its annual report on religious freedom, the department expressed particular concern over the existence of unregulated madressahs in Karachi.
“A March 2007 report indicated that unregulated, extremist madressahs in Karachi continued to thrive in the sprawling city with a large population of young, unemployed men,” the department said.
It also quoted from a similar report by the International Crisis Group which said that after five years of trying to reform madressahs, the government’s programme had not fully succeeded, and that extremist groups were operating mosques and madressahs in the open in Karachi and elsewhere, due to lack of consistent regulation.
The State Department acknowledged that madressahs were traditional institutions for Muslims seeking a purely religious education and in many rural communities they were the only form of education available.
But “in recent years many madressahs have taught extremist doctrine in support of terrorism,” the report added.
The State Department noted that in an attempt to curb the spread of extremism, the 2002 Madressah Registration Ordinance required all madressahs to register with one of the five independent boards (wafaqs), cease accepting foreign financing, and accept foreign students only with the consent of their government.
Quoting statistic provided by the Interior Ministry, the report said that 95 per cent of foreign madressah students departed
by the July 2005 deadline imposed by President Pervez Musharraf.
It also quoted from statistic provided by the Religious Affairs Ministry, showing that approximately 11,000 out of an estimated 13,000 to 15,000 madressahs had registered by the end of the reporting period.
The department recalled that in December 2005 President Musharraf laid out the framework for cooperative registration of madressahs with the government, including provision of financial and educational data and a prohibition on the teaching of sectarian or religious hatred and violence.
The government and the independent madressah boards agreed to a phased introduction of secular subjects, including math, English, and science at all madressahs.
All wafaqs mandated the elimination of teaching that promoted religious or sectarian intolerance and terrorist or extremist recruitment at madressahs. Inspectors mandated that affiliated madressahs supplement religious studies with secular subjects, including English, math and science.
Examination concerns remained under active discussion with the government.
Wafaqs also restricted foreign private funding of madressahs. But the State Department claimed that some unregistered and madressahs in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and northern Balochistan continued to teach extremism.
Similarly, the Dawa schools run by Jamat-ud-Dawa continued such teaching and recruitment for Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a US-designated foreign terrorist organisation.
The US report also observed that the MMA-led provincial government continued to pass directives and legislation in accordance with conservative Islamic views.
