“What Virginia’s Islamic Saudi Academy Doesn’t Want You to Know:” plenty
Comment by Jerry Gordon
This revelation by Patrick Poole in today’s Pajamas Media report of a cover up of sexual abuse at the embattled Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in McLean, Virginia is one more indictment of why the Saudi embassy-backed institution has to go under intense public scrutiny at both the local and Federal levels. Wednesday’s release of a report on translated hate texts by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) at the Saudi backed private school, that leases property from Fairfax County, Virginia, revealed the hate poured into the minds of young students there. Hate that eventuated in one alumnus, Ali Abu, an ISA valedictorian from the 1999 class, in his conviction by a Federal district court in Northern Virginia of an assassination attempt on President Bush.
Yesterday, I had an extended conversation with John Cosgrove, who heads the United American Committee (UAC) Virginia chapter about the ISA matter. Cosgrove, the Laffertys of Traditional Values and Christine Brim of the Center for Security Policy had testified on May 19th at the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors hearing against renewing the ISA’s lease on the public property. Christine Brim of the Center for Security Policy sent us a link to the video of the public hearing. You may view the video here (click on the “Public Hearings” link under the May 19th heading). The proceedings depicted in the video are a stunning indictment, we believe, of the callous disregard of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors of their responsibilities for conducting fair and responsible hearings under Commonwealth of Virginia laws. With the alleged sexual abuse cover up and police investigations of the incident, including seizure of the computer hard drive of the ISA’s director, less than three days after the Board of Supervisors gave its assent to the ISA lease gives cause to reopen the matter. Perhaps this time, the Fairfax Board of Supervisors might be forced to retract salacious allegations of slander they cast at witnesses at the originally hearing in late May.
These reports of hate texts and sexual abuse cover ups are outrageous indictments against both the ISA and the Fairfax Board of Supervisors. The festering ISA matter, as revered US Supreme Justice Louis Brandeis said in one of his famous dissents, “ needs the disinfectant of public disclosure” and pronto.
by Patrick Poole, Pajamas Media, June 13, 2008
Why is the Saudi-funded school covering up sex abuse allegations and using textbooks that incite students to violence?
The Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax County, Virginia, is funded by the Saudi government and operates as an arm of the Saudi Embassy. It has been in the news this week following a report issued by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which found that textbooks used by the academy are filled with incitements to violence and racial and religious bigotry.
Missing in most of the national establishment media coverage of the story, however, is the raid on the school last month by state authorities after academy officials failed to report a five-year-old student’s claims of sex abuse by a parent and later attempted to eliminate any traces of the report.
According to a local news report [video] on June 3, the female student reported her claims to her teachers, and a report on the matter was drawn up by the teachers and the school’s principal and submitted to administrators. But when the allegations reached the desk of school director Abdullah Al-Shabnan, he didn’t believe the girl and failed to report the sex abuse claims to law enforcement within the 72 hours required by state law.
Apparently tipped off on a cover-up, law enforcement authorities raided the school on May 23 to seize computers and look for evidence after Al-Shabnan ordered the original report deleted from school computers.
Just three days before the raid, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to renew the academy’s lease of county property, ignoring multiple reports of the school’s promotion of violence and hatred.
This is far from the first time that the Islamic Saudi Academy has received unwelcome public scrutiny. Just a few days ago, the academy’s 1999 class valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, had his 2005 conviction upheld by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on charges that he joined Al-Qaeda and had plotted to assassinate President George W. Bush. Abu Ali was sentenced to 30 years in prison. As noted by Evan Kohlmann at Counterterrorism Blog, Abu Ali had joined an Al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia while studying at the University of Medina, and one of his Al-Qaeda co-conspirators was killed in a shoot-out with Saudi authorities. (Continue Reading This Article)
June 13th, 2008 at 8:45 • opinion • news • Patrick Poole • Islamic Saudi Academy • sexual abuse cover up • USCIRF hate text report • Pajams Media • 0 Comments •
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