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MONTREAL – Author Djemila Benhabib, on trial for slander for comments made about a Muslim private school, testified Wednesday that the religious instruction offered at the school has no place in Quebec.

Benhabib said alarm bells went off when she read the Qur’anic passages children attending the Muslim School of Montreal were made to memorize. The passages, which she called “an offence to human dignity,” spoke of the beautiful virgins awaiting male believers in the afterlife, while non-believers endured “scorching fire and scalding water.”

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She was equally alarmed by photos on the school’s website showing girl students as young as nine all wearing the Islamic headscarf.

In the 2012 radio interview that landed her in court, Benhabib said children attending the school underwent indoctrination “worthy of a military camp in Afghanistan or Pakistan.” She added that the school’s model society is one where women are submissive and men commit honour crimes against their sisters.