I was sexually assaulted by an imam. He told me he had supernatural powers

"Aria" was 13 years old when she was sexually assaulted by an imam, who told her he was "healing" her.

A respected faith leader at a mosque in East London, Abdul Halim Khan would tell young girls and their parents they needed "curing" from "bad spirits".

After attacking them, he warned the girls that if they told anyone about the abuse, the so-called cure would be undone, they would be cursed, or that harm would come to them and their families from black magic.

"I genuinely believed he had supernatural powers," says Aria, which is not her real name.

She says Khan told her "something really bad would happen to me and my family" if she ever spoke about the abuse. And she wasn't the only one.

Khan abused seven women and girls over 11 years in the same way. His youngest victim was just 12.

“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?“

Winston thought. “By making him suffer”, he said.

“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy – everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed.”
― George Orwell, 1984

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