IS 'caliphate' shatters dreams of Iraqi students

Mosul (Iraq), Oct 16 (IANS/EFE) The "caliphate" proclaimed by the Islamic State (IS) Sunni radical group in Iraq has shattered the dreams of thousands of students, who were unable to travel to Kirkuk, to pass their exams.

Students aged between six and 18 were from Mosul city. They were warned that any person leaving the "caliphate" would be found guilty of apostasy, which is punishable with death sentence.

The IS has "reformed" education programmes in Mosul to adapt them to the Islamic law.

Ibrahim Mohamed al Bayati, head of security in Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, told Efe news agency the Islamists had set up strict check points to identify the students, forcing many to turn back.

"Parents begged the extremists deployed at check points to allow their children to pass, but they refused and threatened to arrest those who disobeyed orders," said high school student Mohamed Ahmed Salem.

Another student, Maisoon Bakr Mohamed said that the IS had "shattered our dreams for future". The students have already lost a whole term as they struggled to study in the middle of the violence that preceded the fall of the city to the militants June 10.

The Iraqi education ministry has announced it would allow students to pass their exams in any other province, without the need to go to school.

The head of education in Nineveh, Sayedo Hussein, told Efe the Kurdish province of Dohuk has set up four schools for displaced students from Mosul, Anbar and Saladin provinces to complete their tests.

The move enabled over 4,140 students in the elementary, middle and high school stages to pass the second phase of official exams Oct 12.

--IANS/EFE

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