Man guilty of allowing 10-year-old son injure himself in Muslim ceremony
A 47-year-old Warwickshire taxi driver has been given a six-month suspended jail term after a court heard how he encouraged his 10-year-old son to flog himself during a centuries-old Muslim religious ceremony in Birmingham.
Jurors found the man guilty of being cruel to a child after being told that the youngster, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was allowed to beat himself at a mosque.
Prosecutors said the man, who lives in Rugby, was the second Muslim to be convicted of cruelty as a result of allowing a boy take part in the Matam Zanjeer ceremony.
During the ceremony men beat themselves with a Zanjeer - a wooden implement which has chains and blades attached to it - to commemorate the death and martyrdom of a 7th-century Muslim leader.
The taxi driver, who also took part in the ceremony, had denied cruelty during a trial at Huntingdon Crown Court.
The court heard that the boy had participated in the ceremony in January 2007, when the man lived in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.
Mozammel Hossain, defending, told Judge Nicholas Coleman that the taxi driver had acted out of "love" and "devotion".
"What he did, it is very clear, was out of devotion - religious - and his love for his son, in a very funny sort of way, and for his god. He loves his son... his son loves him.
"The same thing was done to him. This is the way he has seen life. His father took him in Pakistan. He wanted his son to be a man the way he is."
But he said the taxi driver had learned that allowing a child to beat himself was illegal in the UK and would not re-offend.
