Government Tells Catholic School To Teach Islam?

Source: WND 

Closure could be penalty for noncompliance.

 

Authorities are threatening to close a Christian school on the Muslim-majority Indonesian island of Java because of the school’s refusal to teach Islam, according to reports.
Asia News said officials in the Tegal District in central Java have told the administrators of St. Pius Catholic school that Islam must be taught to the Muslim students or the school will face closure.

“The situation is critical because the sisters of the St Pius Catholic Schools have received threats and warnings, including the threat of having their schools shut down if they do not comply with the requests,” the report said.
Ryan Morgan, Southeast Asia analyst for the Christian human rights group International Christian Concern,  says religion is required in the island nation’s schools.
“Religious education is compulsory in Indonesian schools, but there isn’t a law actually saying that Islam must be the religion taught,” Morgan said.
“Typically the few Christian schools teach Christianity, so I don’t believe that the officials of this particular school district have any legal justification when they started threatening St. Pius Catholic School and demanding they teach Islam,” Morgan said.
However, Morgan said that the law hasn’t stopped local officials.
“Sadly, not having legal backing in Indonesia doesn’t always stop radical Islamic groups from getting their way,” Morgan said.
Morgan said the threats are local, but there’s no information on whether the case could be taken to the national government.
Officials at the Indonesian embassy in Washington did not respond to WND’s request for comment.
Morgan cites the recent church closure case to illustrate the point.
“Case in point is the GKI Yasmin church of Jakarta, which has been forced out of its building and is being told to relocate by the city’s mayor even though Indonesia’s Supreme Court ruled back in January of 2011 that they could stay in their current location,” Morgan said.
Indonesia has seen its share of strife between its Christian minority and Muslims.
WND reported in July that Muslim terror groups were gearing up for a new attack.
A report from Indonesia said terrorist groups in the island nation are regrouping, but they are keeping the bull’s-eye on the country’s Christians.
The International Crisis Group says that because of police intervention, the jihadis are mobile and reorganizing “on the run.”
WND also reported in 2010 that Indonesia’s Muslim militias were preparing for a “religious war.”
Muslim mobs in the Jakarta suburb of Bekasi then were forming small militia bands to stop what they say is the Christianization of the town, a few miles east of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.
The actions came in response to Christians privately baptizing about a half-dozen Muslim converts to Christianity.

Big Brother or Peeping Tom? UK installs CCTV in School Bathrooms, Changing Rooms

*Source: RT

Over 200 UK state schools have installed cameras in bathrooms and changing rooms to monitor students, a recent surveillance survey reported. British parents will likely be shocked by the study’s findings.

­The survey is based on a freedom of information request conducted by Big Brother Watch, an anti-surveillance activist group. The group said they were shaken by the results, which was much higher and more extensive than expected.

The report "will come as a shock to many parents", Nick Pickles, Director of Big Brother Watch said. "Schools need to come clean about why they are using these cameras and what is happening to the footage”.

- 47,806 cameras used in 2,107 schools
- 207 schools have 825 cameras in changing rooms and bathrooms
- 90% of schools use CCTV cameras
- 54 UK schools have 1 camera or more per 15 pupils
- 106,710 CCTV cameras estimated in high schools and academies in England, Scotland and Wales

A total of 825 cameras were installed in the bathrooms and changing rooms of 207 different schools across England, Scotland and Wales, according to data provided by more than 2,000 schools.

It remains unclear where in the bathrooms and changing rooms the cameras are located, who watches the footage and whether any pupils were recorded while changing.

The principal of the Wildern School in southern England, however, said that the cameras in her school – one per bathroom – are located "nowhere near the toilet cubicles."

"The images are not looked at unless there has been a reported problem and all images are deleted after a maximum of 30 days," she said.

Video recording in toilets or changing rooms is legal, but recommended only for exceptional circumstances, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) reported. The ICO is an independent authority in the UK, whose duties include promoting privacy.

Research also showed that the extent of CCTV use varied widely from school to school. “With some schools seeing a ratio of one camera for every five pupils,” the report said. “CCTV appears to be used as a quick fix to much more complex problems and issues that simply cannot be solved with passive surveillance.”

UK schools so unsafe that surveillance needed in the most private spaces?

Since the 1990s, the UK’s Home Office has spent 78 percent of its crime prevention budget on CCTV installations, and schools have likewise invested significant resources in their own surveillance equipment, the Big Brother Watch report said.

No significant research has been done into whether CCTV cameras actually lower crime rates.

Big Brother Watch was able to locate a single study by the French Institut D’ Aménagement Et D’Urbanisme, which concluded that theft and burglary continued to increase after the 2007 installation of CCTV in the Île-de-France region. A marginal reduction in disorderly incidents in schools was also reported.

‘Shocking’ highlights

The Big Brother Watch report estimated that more than 100,000 cameras monitor students and teachers across Britain, with 90 percent of the schools surveyed acknowledging the use of some form of video surveillance.

Responses from 2,107 secondary schools showed that they used 47,806 cameras in total with more than half installed inside the schools. The Radclyffe School in Oldham surpassed all other schools in the survey, with 20 cameras total in bathrooms and changing rooms.

Sharon Holder, the GMB's national officer, told Newsvine that her trade union was disgusted with the findings.

"Placing CCTV in school bathrooms poses a worrying development in school policy and raises a number of questions,” she said. “How many parents have given headteachers permission to film their child going to the toilet or having a shower? What happens to the film afterwards? How much discussion has there been on governing bodies and to what extent have councils and councilors had any input into these developments? What problems are the schools trying to solve?”