ISIS Kills 7-Y-O Boy in Front of Parents for 'Cursing Divinity'
A 7-year-old child was executed by the Islamic State terrorist organization in Syria last week on the grounds that he violated the group's strict version of Islamic law by "insulting divinity."
According to the Kurdistan-based ARA News agency, eyewitnesses and rights activists said the barbaric militant group IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) killed a young boy named Muaz Hassan last Thursday in the group's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa after he was accused of "cursing divinity."
Hassan was publicly executed in Raqqa's Naeem Square, where a member of IS' Shariah court read the charges against Hasan and explained the reason why the group was executing such a young boy. According to the witnesses, the Shariah court ruled that the boy was convicted of "infidelity."
"Islamic State's police arrested Muaz Hassan earlier this week in the city of Raqqa, after they heard him 'cursing divinity,' while playing in the street with his friends," a witness who quoted a member of IS' Shariah court told ARA News. "The act was considered an insult to the caliphate, regardless of the age of the boy."
The witnesses explained that the young boy was killed after being shot to death by agents of the Hisbah (IS police force in Raqqa) in front of his own parents and hundreds of other residents in the town. The boy's parents fell to the ground in grief after seeing their child murdered by the jihadis.
Although it is not quite clear what "insulting" or "cursing divinity" means, it could likely be another way of phrasing the term "blasphemy." In many conservative Islamic nations like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, accusations of blasphemy are all that is needed to justify killing or imprisoning an individual or family.
IS has become notorious for executing its hostages and residents.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights released a list late last month of over 4,000 people who have been executed by the militant group in Syria since June 2014.
The list also detailed the number of different methods used by the jihadis to carry out their executions. Along with shooting victims in the back of the head, IS often resorts to beheadings, stonings and throwing gay men off of rooftops.
The group has also been known burn people alive in cages and lock victims in cages and drown them in water. IS has even executed at least one victim by running over their body with a battle tank.
The National Iraqi News Agency reports that IS militants in the organization's Iraqi stronghold of Mosul recently executed five girls after their parents refused to pay a gold tax that the militant group imposed on all the households in the town.
Although IS has executed thousands of people in nearly two years, ARA News reports the execution of the 7-year-old Hassan was the first time the group blatantly and publicly executed a child, which the report points out is a violation of Islamic law.