Thursday, August 19, 2004
Islamic teachers in Thailand 'brainwashing' students: PM
Press Trust of India Bangkok, August 19
Islamic teachers in southern Thailand are "brainwashing" students and there will be no quick end to the Muslim insurgency there, said Thailand's prime minister.
Several Muslim teachers have been arrested recently on suspicions that they may be encouraging students to take part in rebellions. Many militants killed in fighting have also been teenagers studying at religious schools.
"The problem is difficult to resolve because the (religious) teachers have been brainwashing people with the wrong interpretation of the Quran," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told journalists in Bangkok. "It will take time to resolve the problem."
More than 330 people have been killed in fighting this year in the three muslim-dominated southern provinces of predominantly Buddhist Thailand.
In the latest violence today, a gunman riding on the back of a motorbike shot dead an assistant village chief and his wife in Pattani province's Kokpho district, said the police.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.