The Muslim community must not make the mistakes of the Catholic Church

Dear Editor,  
When the Catholic Church started to confront the presence of abusers in their ranks, they feared for the public image of their religion so much that they dismissed the cases as anti-Catholic propaganda. Instead of looking to the people and policies of their organisation and thus cleansing themselves of the cancer, they fought hard to prevent the public from seeing their supposed shame.
The only real shame of course is to deny the safety of children by not taking accusations seriously. Now that the Muslim community is faced with a prominent incident, it is the duty of the Muslim leaders not to accuse outsiders of being against them, but to look within, to cleanly and clearly cut the abusers out of their organisations and culture whenever they are found so that the public can see that Islam does not tolerate this evil.  It must be seen that Muslims are the most ardent protectors of children and to that end Muslims should be the loudest voices calling for investigation of the case at Turkeyen.  Muslims should welcome the maximum media exposure for this case so that the swiftness of Muslims to deal with abusers can be demonstrated to all.
The culture of denial in the Catholic Church led to mass defections. Attendance at church and monetary donations dried up because Catholics came to feel they could not trust their leaders to protect their children.
Islam in Guyana must pursue a policy of transparency and be willing to deal stringently with accusations and with those found guilty of abuse.
Imam Baksh