The Guardian said an Australia Associated Press report revealed that an Islamic cleric has been stood down by his mosque and gotten his visa sponsorship revoked due to allegations that he conducted a wedding ceremony between an adult man and a child bride.
Riaz Tasawar, who is a Pakistani national, was arrested and charged this week with conducting a marriage by an unauthorized person. The union was reportedly between a 12 year-old girl and a 26 year-old man in the Hunter region, New South Wales last year.
Police have said that the man was also found to have been involved in a sexual relationship with the minor, and was subsequently charged with 25 counts of sexual intercourse with a child.
In response to the scandal, the Islamic Centre of Newcastle, of where Tasawar was the mosque's resident Imam, said that it has severed its ties with the cleric on Wednesday.
Islamic Centre of Newcastle president Yunus Kara said, "His employment has been dismissed and he's not allowed to come to the mosque. The centre has nothing to do with him."
Kara also said that the management of the mosque have decided to withdraw the sponsorship visa of Tasawar, adding that the issue has been widely regarded as un-Islamic by the Muslim community in Australia. Kara, in the interview, also expressed concern for the girl who is caught in the middle of the sex scandal.
The report also said that the child bride's father was also charged on Wednesday for procuring a child for illegal sexual activity and an accessory to sexual intercourse of a minor. He reportedly appeared before the local court of Raymond Terrace, and that request for a bail was formally refused by the court. The father is set to appear before the local court of Newcastle for his crimes on April 9.
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