ISIS flogs musicians, executes youngsters for watching soccer

BUJAC, Syria (Christian Examiner) -- Reports of public floggings and executions are on the rise in areas controlled by the Islamic State as an alleged ISIS information office distributes images showing the violence with which the jihadists are treating Syrians who the militants say have broken Sharia law.

The latest to be persecuted by ISIS police includes piano players and pigeon breeders according to reports circulated this week of young men being beaten and captured for participating in either.

The Daily Mail reported Tuesday that men were seen being given 90 lashes for playing "un-Islamic" electric keyboards deemed "offensive to Muslims."

A video report of the incident showed the musicians' backs and legs beaten and their instruments destroyed with wooden poles as crowds watched. Pictures depicting similar raids to destroy lutes were thought to have occurred in Bujaq, near Aleppo in Syria.

Other photographs from the information office show smugglers lashed, thieves' arms or hands amputated and adulterers executed -- all performed in public and documented by photo and video.

A farmer said six gunmen dragged away his 21-year-old son from their home for breeding pigeons. The young man was said to be one of 15 breeders in eastern Iraq, NBC News reported. ISIS enforcers reportedly stated the sport is a distraction from practicing their religion.

The group is also said to have executed at least a dozen boys in Mosul for watching Iraq play Jordan in an international soccer match. The teens were executed by a firing squad using machine guns.