Word: hasan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...People who have worked with Hasan claim he's simply a con man, a real-life Fagin who uses children for profit. Hasan "is a man of bad character," says Idris Luis Freitas (he is not related to him), who helped find recruits for Hasan in the 1990s. "It's nothing to do with whether he's a Muslim or not, he's just bad. He takes the names of the children and uses them to make proposals to charities for funding, then uses the money for himself. Without the children it would be impossible for Freitas to raise funds...
...UNHCR is handling requests from 33 parents who want their children back from Hasan's Lemorai Foundation, some of them scattered as far afield as Sumatra and Sulawesi. Reunions, however, are not likely to happen quickly for those in Hasan's care?or for hundreds of other displaced East Timorese children. The U.N. can only make requests. After that it's up to the Indonesian authorities. I. Gusti Wesaka Puja, the official handling the issue at the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta, says the government is doing all it can to help. But "the fact is we have other priorities that...
...Hasan vehemently denies he is doing anything wrong. He says funds for his Lemorai Foundation come from "alms given by Indonesian Muslims who care about our misfortune." He proffers documents indicating everything is on the up-and-up. Children's surnames written on the papers are frequently either "Freitas" or "da Silva," Hasan's family name and that of his wife. Filling out the documents that way strengthens his claim over the children, making Hasan appear to be their nearest relative, says Qodri of the Riantara...
...Hasan also produces other papers, these relating to what he cheerfully calls "my terrible past." The documents indicate he was once a low-level agent for the Indonesian military intelligence service in East Timor, a group blamed by human rights activists for hundreds of killings and disappearances. Hasan, a small man who on this day is wearing a cotton sarong, tracksuit top and traditional pillbox hat, is proud of his service as an informer. He seems puzzled as to why others might not be. In fact, he says, it was through the military that he first...
...people into Muslims. And why not when others were allowed to turn East Timor to Catholicism?" His viewpoints are not universally shared by other Muslims. "I don't care about how he earns his living these days," says Salim Musalam Sagran, who has known and occasionally worked with Hasan since 1990 and is a former senior official in the influential Council of Islamic Preachers, which among other roles gives out government money to orphanages and other charities. "But I have every interest in ensuring the children's future. Freitas must realize that the children have the right to communicate with...