Muslim cleric receives sentence for assaulting daughter in Britain

As a Muslim Cleric brutally assaulted and threatened to murder his own daughter because she had a boyfriend, Once again it would appear that even those highly regarded in the Muslim Community are not exempt from the violence, intimidation, segregation and breach of the Law that goes with the territory.

Muslim Cleric Abid Hussain, 56, who runs a mosque at Longsight in Manchester, assaulted his 16-year-old daughter Rabiyah Abid after she refused to follow the tradition of arranged marriage orchestrated by her father, according to a report in a newspaper on Saturday.

Rabiya was to be wed to the son of Hussain’s sister in Pakistan, aged 15, reported The Daily Mail.

The father-of-five was reported to have been overwhelmed by rage and insult when he found out his daughter had a boyfriend in the U.K. Hussain is alleged to have grabbed her by the throat and said: “Follow my rules or I’ll kill you” before hitting her on the head at the family home. “He was quite angry, really angry,” said the daughter.

The 16-year-old met her boyfriend Gulraiz Sultan, a student at a London college, via the social networking site Facebook.

In November last year, Rabiyah ran away from home to stay with her boyfriend who had traveled up from London and was staying with one of his friends in Oldham, Manchester. Her brother Nawab Uddin, 23, later reported his sister missing. When officers traced her, she told them of her fears that she would be forced to marry when she finished her GCSEs at school, reported the newspaper.

When Hussain returned from Pakistan, where he had been celebrating Eid, he was served by police with a Forced Marriage Prevention Order stopping him from pressuring her into the arranged marriage.

The document led to Rabiyah’s passport being taken by the authorities. Hussain stated that a combination of his daughter and the UK judicial system deprived him of his right to choose her husband within his own family.

Weeks later, on December 26, he is reported to have assaulted his daughter after which she sent a text message to Sultan saying “I thought I was going to die last night”. Two days later her brothers, Nawab and Bahaud, were said to have snatched her phone in order to prevent contact to and from her boyfriend. They reportedly smacked her in the face and head.

She wore a veil to hide her injuries and the next day she reported them to the police.

Hussain was convicted of assault and making threats to kill and his two sons were also convicted of assault on Friday at Manchester Crown Court.

Sentencing Hussain, Judge Michael Leeming said: “I am satisfied this was a strange loss of temper but an attempt to part your own influence and control on your daughter an attempt to coerce her in to conforming with your own beliefs.

In his defense, Hussain stated: “I told her, if you want to go with him you are at liberty but adopt a proper way, a civilized way, a modern way. We can’t force you. But I got told by someone that they made a plan that father should go to jail.”

Hussain further stated that the action of his daughter had caused the family “mental torture.”

“Hussain is plainly a devout man retaining traditional values regarding family matters, which is the reason for what we say was the offending in this case, because his daughter was not going along with his wishes in following that cultural duty,” said Prosecutor Henry Blackshaw.

Hussain received a suspended sentence of nine months suspended for 12 months, with 100 hours unpaid work. He escaped serving any time behind bars.

The brothers, Nawab Uddin and Bahaud Uddin, received a suspended sentence of three months suspended for 12 months, with 100 hours unpaid work and a supervision order for 12 months.