No Sharia Law UK

[durruti02]

I'm against this. The target is wrong. The law should allow any form of arbitration if both parties are agreed. ANY form. What the campaign should be about is changing how Sharia operates and making it less patriarchal. Likewise Beth Din.

The public meeting seems fine to me. The march worries me. It's too close to the Islamophobic agenda.

oh ffs .. you attack muslims who are not happy with the extremes of islam as being ".. too close to the Islamophobic agenda..." simply unbelievable .. on another thread you cliam the rise iof the BNP is related to the downgrading of anti racism in NuLab .. so if you care about racism why do you not care about womens and gay rights and the righst of those who do not conform to relegion?


March 7, 2009, North Terrace, Trafalgar Square, 3:30-4:30pm

Symbolic demonstration in support of one law for all in Britain and against religious based tribunals followed by a march to Red Lion Square from 4:30-5:30pm

March 7, 2009, 6:00-8:00pm, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL

Public Meeting on Sharia Law, Sexual Apartheid and Women's Rights

Speakers include: Sargul Ahmad (International Campaign against Civil Law in Kurdistan Iraq head), Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Journalist and British Muslims for Secular Democracy Chair), Naser Khader (Democratic Muslims Founder), Gina Khan (One Law for All Spokesperson), Kenan Malik (Writer and Broadcaster), Yasaman Molazadeh (One Law for All Legal Coordinator):Maryam Namazie (Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran and One Law for All Spokesperson), Pragna Patel (Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism founding member), Fariborz Pooya (Iranian Secular Society and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain Chair), and Carla Revere (Lawyers’ Secular Society Chair).

 

[ericjarvis]

I see a strong Muslim involvement in the public meeting, which I don't criticise because it's precisely the sort of approach I approve of. Questioning how to change Sharia so that women's rights are protected. The March seems to be advertised with a completely different agenda. There is no clear connection between the two, so I have no way of knowing what level of Muslim involvement there has been in organising the march.

Consequently I am not attacking ANY Muslims other than those who hold to a sexist interpretation of Islam. I am criticising the juxtaposition of a protest against something that isn't being proposed anywhere and which fits very closely with BNP propaganda, and an important public meeting attempting to further the progress of women's rights within Islam.

A bit of further research implies even more confusingly that the march was advertised as having different agendas in different places. So my guess is that what I actually object to amounts to conflating the ideas of "one law for all" and "opposing religious based tribunals". I repeat. The law should not force people to use a specific form of arbitration or prevent them agreeing to use any form of arbitration they agree to. That's the current situation and it should stay that way.

So a demonstration of support for Muslim women who want to avoid being forced to agree to settle disputes by Sharia law is fine. A demonstration demanding that the law be changed to force everyone to use the same form of arbitration regardless is something I wholeheartedly disapprove of. I don't see a clear description of which of these the march was.

 

[Sadken]

Not really, I would say.

I'm warming to the Thunderdome idea though.

Hell yeah.

 

[bemused]

Isn't any form of legally bidding arbitration enforced under UK law irrelevant of the framework you choose the arbitration to take place?

Seems to me that people who object to religious arbitration are actually attacking an ancient British legal concept.

It is a voluntary process why people who would never choose to take part in it feel need to protest against I've no idea - are they going to march against ACAS next?

 

[Wolveryeti]

It is a voluntary process why people who would never choose to take part in it feel need to protest against I've no idea - are they going to march against ACAS next?

What about people who aren't familiar with the law, who might have few links with wider society/not speak English very well? I think there is a significant risk they might interpret the rules regarding this kind of arbitration and assume it is obligatory and cannot be contested. In that kind of a situation it isn't really 'voluntary' at all.

I feel very strongly that all kinds of religious courts should be banned and shut down. One society, one law. None of this mickey-mouse religious bullshit.

 

[bemused]

What about people who aren't familiar with the law, who might have few links with wider society/not speak English very well? I think there is a significant risk they might interpret the rules regarding this kind of arbitration and assume it is obligatory and cannot be contested. In that kind of a situation it isn't really 'voluntary' at all.

I feel very strongly that all kinds of religious courts should be banned and shut down. One society, one law. None of this mickey-mouse religious bullshit.

Not a big believer in freedom of choice then?

 

[pk]

Not a big believer in freedom of choice then?

A choice to ignore the ranting imams who espouse Sharia shite is the point of the march, no?

 

[Wolveryeti]

Not a big believer in freedom of choice then?

The whole point is that there will be people who do not realise they have a choice, or who will have disproportionate amount of pressure placed on them to accept this type of arbitration and/or its verdicts.

 

[bemused]

The whole point is that there will be people who do not realise they have a choice, or who will have disproportionate amount of pressure placed on them to accept this type of arbitration and/or its verdicts.

These are only civil matters so I can't believe it's a huge problem.

 

[Wolveryeti]

These are only civil matters so I can't believe it's a huge problem.

There is no civic body which oversees the verdicts that they hand down, and quite frankly I think it's rather optimistic to assume that they are always going to stick to the remit they have been given by UK law.

There is also the question of the repugnant views held by certain leaders of the Sharia Council

Dr Sheikh Hasan of the Sharia Council of Britain:

"If sharia law is implemented, then you can turn this country into a haven of peace because once a thief's hand is cut off nobody is going to steal," he says.

"Once, just only once, if an adulterer is stoned nobody is going to commit this crime at all.

"We want to offer it to the British society. If they accept it, it is for their good and if they don't accept it they'll need more and more prisons."

IMO people like that deserve nothing but ridicule and the last thing they should be offered is the fig leaf of legitimacy through the semblance of a parallel judicial system.

 

[bemused]

There is no civic body which oversees the verdicts that they hand down, and quite frankly I think it's rather optimistic to assume that they are always going to stick to the remit they have been given by UK law.

There is also the question of the repugnant views held by certain leaders of the Sharia Council

Dr Sheikh Hasan of the Sharia Council of Britain:

"If sharia law is implemented, then you can turn this country into a haven of peace because once a thief's hand is cut off nobody is going to steal," he says.

"Once, just only once, if an adulterer is stoned nobody is going to commit this crime at all.

"We want to offer it to the British society. If they accept it, it is for their good and if they don't accept it they'll need more and more prisons."

IMO people like that deserve nothing but ridicule and the last thing they should be offered is the fig leaf of legitimacy through the semblance of a parallel judicial system.

What are you on about? All of the above are illegal, if a arbitration court tried to deal will a criminal case behind closed doors they'd be committing a crime.

 

[likesfish]

any woman is a 2nd rate citizen when compared to a man in sharia
so its not fair
its about as fair as thunderdome
between me and cheesy poof with bayonets
one of us is allegedly an ex trained infantry soldier and one isn't

 

[ericjarvis]

The problem as far as I'm concerned is that it isn't only Sharia law that is unfair to women. So campaigning against the existence of Sharia law at all is aiming at the wrong target. The BNP and the gutter press have made a huge song and dance about the idea that Muslims can choose to use Sharia to settle civil disputes if all parties agree, as if that is some sort of privilege granted specifically to a religious system of justice. It isn't. It's simply that if all parties in a civil dispute agree then they can settle it any damn way they like, by drawing lots if they wish, or by using the I Ching, or whatever they like. This is an old established freedom.

To campaign to ban any form of arbitration based on religion would be even handed and logical. However that isn't the message being presented. If it were I would accept it as honest even if I didn't agree with it. To demand that the law always be administered so that women's rights are properly safeguarded is admirable and something I am 100% in favour of. To claim that a campaign to ban the use of religion as a basis for arbitration is actually a campaign to protect women's rights seems a little odd to me. I get the distinct impression that there are several agendas involved, not all of which are prepared to state an overt aim, and all jumping on a bandwagon that the fascists have also jumped aboard.

That's my difficulty. I approve wholeheartedly with the idea of bringing Islam into the 21st century. I approve wholeheartedly of secular law being paramount over any religious law. I'm not convinced that simply lumping the two things together makes any kind of sense at all. Except in that it allows Muslim feminists and secularists to make common cause, unfortunately also making common cause with less admirable groups.

 

[pk]

These are only civil matters so I can't believe it's a huge problem.

It's a MASSIVE problem if the laws of the UK are skewed to fit the extremely fuckwit rantings of people who subscribe to a particularly cruel and unjust version of backward religious laws!

You can call me an Islamaphobe if you like - I am - I am also a Judeophobe and a Catholicophobe (if there is such a term).

Keep the church the fuck away from UK law.

If you're a practicing religious zealot living under UK law then get used to UK law or fuck off to a political climate more to your liking.

No Sharia Law. That certainly doesn't make me a BNP supporter, for fucks sake.

Sharia law advocates are as bad - or sometimes worse - than the fucking BNP will ever be.

 

[laptop]

It's a MASSIVE problem if the laws of the UK are skewed to fit the extremely fuckwit rantings of people who subscribe to a particularly cruel and unjust version of backward religious laws!

Then you are campaigning for the abolition of the Jewish religious courts in the UK?

(There are Christian courts too, but AFAIK they deal only with intra-Church disputes.)

 

[bemused]

It's a MASSIVE problem if the laws of the UK are skewed to fit the extremely fuckwit rantings of people who subscribe to a particularly cruel and unjust version of backward religious laws!

What are you on about? Binding arbitration is part of English law - they can't enforce anything that isn't. It's a voluntarily process.

 

[bemused]

The problem as far as I'm concerned is that it isn't only Sharia law that is unfair to women.

I don't get this argument either, legally binding arbitration has to be within UK law. The point people seem to make is that women will be forced into this form of arbitration rather than other forms. If they are already succumbing to pressure to agree to something a man why would they even go to arbitration - wouldn't they just get the women to sign an agreement anyway?

Arbitration is bound by UK law, Sharia hasn't been adopted into UK law - apart from a few banking regulations.

I come from the school if people aren't doing anything illegal and doing no harm to anyone they should be able to live however they want.

 

[ericjarvis]

I'm largely in agreement. Unfairness to women in civil law isn't something that can be fixed by simply making arbitration under specific sets of rules illegal. Men that bully women into accepting unfair decisions under Sharia aren't going to respond to a ban on using Sharia to decide civil disputes by suddenly being fair to women. They will continue to bully women in other ways instead.

So all that campaigning against Sharia does is upset Muslims to no good purpose whatsoever. Whereas campaigning against unfair treatment of women is an entirely good thing.

 

[ericjarvis]

It's a MASSIVE problem if the laws of the UK are skewed to fit the extremely fuckwit rantings of people who subscribe to a particularly cruel and unjust version of backward religious laws!

However they aren't and pretty much nobody suggests they should be. All that can happen at present is that if both parties agree to use a specific moral/ethical system to settle a civil matter then it can be given the seal of approval by a civil court. So far as I can see there's no problem there. It is a long standing freedom that I don't see any good reason to take away.

If you change it from being a comprehensive approval of any mutually agreed process to settle a civil legal matter then you will end up needing to specify precisely what can and can't be used as a process. That's either going to take up the time of just about every civil servant in the country for a decade or two, or it will lead to some pretty ugly mistakes. Where do you set limits. Are you suggesting that Wiccan marriages should be made illegal? How about if people decide to seal a deal with a handshake, is that acceptable or must they get a solicitor to draw up documents for them to sign? At present the law is perfectly sensible as it stands. We don't need a solution to a problem we don't have.

By all means campaign against bullys of any religion forcing their views on others. However in this case you appear to be demanding that your views be forced upon others. Precisely the problem you claim needs fixing. I don't care who does it, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Zoroastrian, where I currently have a freedom I don't like people demanding it should be taken away.

 

[JWH]

What about people who aren't familiar with the law, who might have few links with wider society/not speak English very well? I think there is a significant risk they might interpret the rules regarding this kind of arbitration and assume it is obligatory and cannot be contested. In that kind of a situation it isn't really 'voluntary' at all.

But the same argument can be made about any/all legal systems.

 

[pk]

However they aren't and pretty much nobody suggests they should be. All that can happen at present is that if both parties agree to use a specific moral/ethical system to settle a civil matter then it can be given the seal of approval by a civil court. So far as I can see there's no problem there. It is a long standing freedom that I don't see any good reason to take away.

If you change it from being a comprehensive approval of any mutually agreed process to settle a civil legal matter then you will end up needing to specify precisely what can and can't be used as a process.

The way I see it, the British judiciary system is happy to let certain matters be settled within the traditions of dubious Islamic law.

Many people, women in particular, will suffer if the process advances.

Only this week 300 women were pelted with rocks in Kabul, for protesting against the legalisation of marital rape, whereby a husband can demand sex from his wife 4 times a week.

My fear is that people are scared to reject the initial phase of imposing outdated religious law for fear of being called Islamophobic.
I personally reject this shit as vehemently as I do the Vatican calling abortion and contraception as evil.

One set of laws is enough.

 

[ericjarvis]

One set of laws is what we currently have, pk. It includes the right for both parties in a civil action to settle matters in any way they can agree on. That is the ONLY way in which Sharia law can ever apply under the current system. How do you propose to alter that without either specifically legislating against Islam, or curtailing everybody's rights to settle civil actions in any way they choose? Simply railing against the excesses of extreme fundamentalist Islam isn't an answer. One might just as well claim that the excesses of Stalin justify actions against atheism, which is just as absurd an idea. If you haven't got concrete proposals that improve on the current situation then why object to the status quo? Otherwise all that happens is it gives support to those using Islamophobia to advance a far right political agenda whilst doing absolutely nothing to improve the rights of women.