Islamic Sharia Courts In Britain Now "Legally Binding"

Islamic sharia law courts in Britain are exploiting a little-known legal clause to make their verdicts officially binding under UK law in cases including divorce, financial disputes and even domestic violence.

A new network of courts in five major cities is hearing cases where Muslims involved agree to be bound by traditional Sharia law, and under the 1996 Arbitration Act the court's decisions can then be enforced by the county courts or the High Court.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[research]

Britain: STOP THIS NOW!

[EllieK]

What about the Muslim women and men who don't want to use these courts? That's a key point to consider. Because while in theory it's their choice, in reality - among the very traditional communities - it's not a choice at all. So if there's a domestic abuse situation for instance, or an issue of forced marriage (and British schools and government agencies have already reported on the rise of teenage Muslim girls pulled out of school and compelled to marry), then there's really no recourse for a woman who wants to get out of such a situation. Defying community norms in these cases can often mean further physical harm and even death (the so-called honor killings). This is not an exaggeration and it is happening in Britain (and in Europe generally).

For a woman who has traditional views and wants to use the courts, fine; they're there for her and her family to use. But for others who want to seek recourse elsewhere, in traditional British courts? Their options are now even more limited than before, when police and domestic abuse shelters were already doing a poor job protecting them; now they'll have to go through the legally binding sharia courts, which truly disfavor women. While the majority of people in the traditional communities might be pleased with these developments, there are always that minority of individuals whose individual rights have been completely disregarded by a country whose government is ostensibly there to promote the rights of individuals.

[Rule Of Law]

Forcing a people, any people--British Islamists or West Virginia baptists--into a corner, results in a hardening of their defenses and a reactionary attachment to their most basic, and most self destructive beliefs.

While our rampant militarism and economic terrorism, threaten the Arab world, we will see them rally around Mullahs and Ayatollahs with radical agendas that turn their own people into bomb bearing slaves, controlled by fear, anger, and lies!The harder we push our empire down their throats, the more inflamed the world will become. When left no option, even a rat will turn and fight.

The same holds true for those "bitter" blue collar workers that Obama addressed earlier this year. If they were bitter then, imagine how they feel today with the economy on the verge of implosion; jobs gone, money gone, hope gone. All that's left is to cling to the lies they've been told before, vote yet again for the very liars that use and discard them, and convince themselves that this is still the America of their history books while ignoring the fact that Bush has destroyed That country!

Two people, both forced into a corner by war or the economy, both manipulated and used by their leaders, who both fall back on the only things they know, and at their own lasting expense.

End the war, allow those countries their freedom, and the "terrorism" stops--tomorrow!
End the brainwashing of America's blue collar middle class and the Constitution is restored, tomorrow.

[Gasparilla]

Oh please. They're not being forced into anything in Britain. This is them, trying to force centuries old practices in a modern country.

[Rule Of Law]

No. The radical Islamists of England are mostly newly arrived immigrants who put their lives in the hands of the same liars and thieves as they did before. They are as mislead by their leaders, as we are, and the most powerful support for the mistaken notions of their crazy bomb making mullahs, is, unfortunately, the war in Iraq and America's history of imperial conquest.

As for centuries old, bs! This new radical fringe is predated by a very cosmopolitan Persia, Turkey, Beirut, and many other Arab countries that practiced a degree of tolerance and acceptance of others that you still won't find today in many parts of the US!

My analogy still stands. Poor people. no matter their religion or locations are always lied to, manipulated, used and then discarded. Doesn't matter if you are a dirt poor muslim in Fallujah or a dirt poor miner in Appalachia. You are trained from birth to accepts certain things and never question them. That's why it's always those folks who die for the "Cause" while the fat cats like Osama and his billionaire family or Bush and his collect money from their deaths.

[UltraClassic]

How sad, is this the brave new world some have spoke of?

[marymansour]

What an inflammatory photo that is. Just the ticket to stir up anti-Muslim sentiments for the coming presidential race in this country.

OBAMA/BIDEN'08.

[morbie5]

If muslims didn't force their woman to wear those things there wouldn't be any pictures like that now would there?

[MagisterLudi]

British preacher Omar Bakri, warned that former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney could be the target of suicide bombers unless he cancels his first concert in Israel, reported the British Sunday Express.
Omar Bakri said, "If he values his life, Mr. McCartney must not come to Israel... the sacrifice operatives will be waiting for him."

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/61355/We-ll-kill-Sir-Paul-if-he-plays-Israel

Note this so called preacher is still at liberty as we speak .

[PaulUK]

Sunday Express, they are just as bad as the Daily Mail! They are always writing stories designed to stoke up fears in the community. They are also woefully inaccurate. Following lurid stories and innuendo about the parents of Madiline McCain they were forced to publish front page apoligies to the family and had to pay substantial damages. You may want to try to find out something about the proprieter of the Express Richard Desmond

[MagisterLudi]

Regardless of the reputation of Daily Mail.
Are you saying that Barki did NOT say this?

[special_muppet]

This isn't what it sounds like. It's not Sharia Law, it's British Law. If certain parties want to negotiate an agreement among themselves then that's fine. They also have recourse to the full weight of the British legal system if they are unsatisfied.

Regarding domestic violence... how many instances go unreported in any country you can mention? Most domestic violence goes unreported, unchecked and unresolved in the US and Europe. Here we see a way for women to address their husband's (or wife's) unacceptable behaviour in a manner that can save their marriages, which is a good thing, no?

Funny how in reality American conservatives would love the idea of resolving disputes at the community level. It's just the fact that these folks are doing it in the context of Islam rather than Christianity that gets them frothing at the mouth. Some posters seem to think that being a muslim means having the same views as Osama Bin Laden. Incorrect.

[Gasparilla]

It's acceptance of Sharia law. The idea that women really have a fair and equitable representation here is a joke. The fact that it's being judged by one of the Sharia "arbitration panels" is more or less proof in itself that the women is treated as a lesser person. It's always that same old protest that "our women are totally equal". Baloney,

[PaulUK]

You are correct, even insurance companies use informal mediation not only here in the UK but also in the US (Have a look at your Auto, Home, Renters or condo insurance for the clause which says binding arbritation)

[SailFree]

Unfortunately, opposing the war on terror makes it MORE LIKELY THAT YOU WILL BE SUBJECTED TO SHARIA LAW IN THE FUTURE. You might rethink the Obama appeasement mentality.

[Hirnlego]

Which is absolutely not true, for there really isn't anything called war on terror in the first place. Terrorism has gone up and people had flee their own home countries and come to Europe.
As for appeasement..there is no such thing.

If you want to fight against terrorism then a completely wrong method has been chosen.
"A new study from the RAND Corporation examined how 648 terror groups around the world ended between 1968 and 2006. It found that by far the most common way for them to disappear was to be absorbed by the political process. The second most common way was to be defeated by police work. In contrast, in only 7 percent of cases did military force destroy the terrorist group.

"There is no battlefield solution to terrorism," the report declares. "Military force usually has the opposite effect from what is intended."

The next president should absorb that lesson and revalidate diplomacy as the primary tool of foreign policy - even if that means talking to ogres."
_____
The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.'
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1129/dailyUpdate.html

[Rule Of Law]

Forcing a people, any people--British Islamists or West Virginia baptists--into a corner, results in a hardening of their defenses and a reactionary attachment to their most basic, and most self destructive beliefs.

As long as we represent a threat to the Arab world with our rampant militarism, and economic terrorism, we will see them rally around Mullahs and Ayatollahs with radical agendas that turn their own people into bomb bearing slaves, controlled by fear, anger, and lies! And the harder we push our empire down their throats, the more inflamed the world will become. When left no option, even a rat will turn and fight.

The same holds true for those "bitter" blue collar workers that Obama addressed earlier this year. If they were bitter then, imagine how they feel today with the economy on the verge of implosion; jobs gone, money gone, hope gone. All that's left is to cling to the lies they've been told before, vote yet again for the very liars that use and discard them, and convince themselves that this is still the America of their history books while ignoring the fact that Bush has destroyed That country!

Two people, both forced into a corner by war or the economy, both manipulated and used by their leaders, who both fall back on the only things they know, and at their own lasting expense.

End the war, allow those countries their freedom, and the "terrorism" stops--tomorrow!

[Moxo]

Ohh... so I guess it is okay that British Jews can have their Bet Din laws honored and British Catholics can have their divorce/annulment laws honored... but British Muslims can' have theirs??

Considering how the Christian Fundermentalists want this nation to follow THEIR laws, complaining about Shia laws being honored by the Brits is a bit disingenuous.

[morbie5]

Jews don't treat there woman like cattle and make them wear full body covering, Muslims do. EU Battered Women shelters aren't filled with Jewish women, they are filed with Muslim women. Nice try though..
OK, sure Christian Fundamentalist are imposing such horrible laws on the rest of us. Hmmm, oh wait, I can't even call a Christmas Tree a Christmas Tree anymore, what a theocracy America has become!!

[MagisterLudi]

Sharia law belongs in 12 th century, not 21th century Europe. Germany and France already elected their own conservatives to push back against this kind of nonsense. England will follow shortly.

[CaptainZero1969]

There is a lesson here folks. Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the founders saw this trap and erected a wall of separation to protect us from it. And time and again we go to the polls and elect people that want to remove the wall. These are the people that insist "America is a Christian nation" ignoring the plain constitutional fact that it is not.

If we want our own flavor of this all we need do is keep electing people like Sara Palin who think that their particular flavor of religion ought to be taught in schools, that the same science that conquered polio is not to be trusted and that God told us to invade Iraq.

[ImpalaSuperSport]

Well here we go. Maybe an honor killing or two will wake the Brits up.

[MalloMel]

Welcome to history. For all those that think that all the weird stuff happened in the past, well it's happening now also. Hundreds of years from now, people will looking at how weird we are while they are create their own history... and so it goes on and on.

Another thing: It was never "those Liberals" that were behind the mayhem and blood shed down through history. It was always the Conservative types behind it all, just like now.

[MalloMel]

I repeat:

"Another thing: It was never "those Liberals" that were behind the mayhem and blood shed down through history. It was always the Conservative types behind it all, just like now."

Remember, by today's standards, Jesus would be a Liberal. He damned sure wouldn't be a conservative and doing this crap. Now let's here from all those good Christians who disagree with this.

[morbie5]

"Those Liberals" tolerate and promote this kind of stuff and call it "multiculturalism." The rest of us would just as well kick them out and let them do whatever they want back in Pakistan or Arabia.

In 20 years if any European in the UK, France, or the Netherlands doesn't want to live under an Islamic government you are welcome to come to America.

[DavePotts]

The left has also been responsible for abusing power once it's able to take control. The 20th century is nothing if not a history of a great trampling of individual rights by the powerful on the right AND the left.

That being said, telling Europeans to escape Sharia and come to the US will be completely useless if we ourselves are living under the theocratic rule of the evangelicals.

[CaptainZero1969]

Wrong - a pluralistic society actually protects all of us from whatever insane dogma wants to take power. It is only by keeping ALL religious influence out of government that ALL religions are able to co-exist. Where you get into trouble is when any particular sect gains enough power to begin taking rights away from those not in the favored faith. So far, "activist judges", that is to say like Bush appointed religious conservative judge John Jones in the Kitzmiller v. Dover School Board case have been a bulwark against these intrusions of faith into secular institutions. So far...

People like Palin want nothing so much as they want to impose their religious views on all. Is she really that much different than this alarming story from the U.K.? Is it somehow OK because her faith is Christianity and theirs is Islam?

[ranchobob]

If this is true it is absolutely appalling -
send them home - give the women asylum

[MagisterLudi]

Saudi Supreme Court issues a free' hunting season" fatwah on TV station owners.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/09/2008913181844832341.html

This is already happening in Europe!