Canada: Legal ghettos in the name of Allah

The plan to establish Islamic courts in the Canadian province of Ontario and leave the Muslim minority to the mercy of Sharia, has unleashed a wave of protest. Muslim women are horrified about the idea that a secular western democracy like Canada invites archaic religious laws, deeply committed to the concept of gender inequality, to strike root in its legal system. Growing resistance against the threatening human rights crisis has forced the government of Ontario now, to reconsider the matter.

"We see no compelling reason to live under any other form of law in Canada and we want the same laws to apply to us as to other Canadian women", demands the national Canadian Council of Muslim Women. But some self nominated Muslim leaders have different plans, and the government of Ontario seemed willing to cooperate.

Entry point for the 1400-year-old Quran-based Sharia is the Ontario Arbitration Act of 1991. It allows religious and other groups to settle civil legal disputes among their members according to their own rules and arbitrations. Under this act, Hassidic Jews are running their own Beit Din, based on Jewish law. Catholics, Ismaili Muslims (followers of Aga Khan) and aborigines, too, are maintaining their traditional arbitration. In October 2003, conservative Muslim Sharia campaigners discovered that this legal loophole could be used to enforce Islamic law in Canada. Securing acceptance of representatives of some major Muslim groups, sects and national communities, they were fast to create an Islamic Institute for Legal Justice and declare it the highest Islamic arbitration board in the country.

If the government does not act fast, Sharia courts may soon start handing down their rulings in Ontario. Those rulings would be final and binding, as the full authority of the Canadian judiciary is conferred on them and guarantees their enforcement by Canadian police and local Canadian courts - without them having any discretion in the matter. There will be ghettos of religious law in Canada, pressing the secular democracy's executive machinery into service.

That does not mean that adulterers will be stoned to death, the authorities are fast to explain. They feel they have already done enough by establishing certain "safeguards" against such excesses: Sharia courts will - for the time being - not be in charge of criminal cases, but civil cases only (divorce, separation, child custody, division of property etc.). Their decisions are required to be consistent with Canadian laws and the Human Rights Charter. And finally, they can only act, provided all parties involved give their consent to the process.

So everybody is equal - but some are far less equal than others. To get their fair share, inhabitants of the ghettos would have to bluntly refuse the participation in religious tribunals or challenge decisions, passed in the name of Allah, in an ordinary Canadian court. That is certainly possible, amounts, however, to blasphemy and apostasy. Enormous communal and religious pressure, family ostracism and sometimes risk of life could be the price of justice.

What was fashionably labeled as "multicultural ethos" and presented as a gesture of generosity to Canada's one million strong Muslim minority, is in fact a sellout of the legal system that divides Canadians into different classes. In future there would be women whose equality is protected by law, and others, less fortunate ones, whose inequality is protected by law.

The "model Ontario", once practiced, will set new standards. It will help to legitimize the demands of fundamentalist religious leaders to establish autonomous legal ghettos all over the secular world. Delegates of the International Islamic Conference in Cairo in April urged already the incorporation of Sharia and its moral values into the International Law.

Iran: Death penalty charges against Prof. Aghajari dropped

All charges that could lead to death penalty for Prof. Sayyed Hashem Aghajari, Iranian progressive historian, are now dropped. New charges against him have been read out in a hearing on 28 June, ahead the opening of the new trial scheduled for this week. Last month, the Supreme Court had quashed the death sentence on the history professor and prominent regime critic and ordered total re-examination of the case by a special court in Tehran (Flash News from 2 June 2004).

The accusation of "insulting the prophet" or "denying religious principles", both of which are considered apostasy and punishable by death, are not upheld. Instead, Prof. Aghajari is now accused of "insulting religious sanctities" - which carries a maximum sentence of one to five years in jail. He was personally present in the hearing and denied the new charges.

Prof. Aghajari had twice been convicted to death by a court in Hamedan after challenging in a public speech the right of Iran's clergy to rule the country and demanding a reformation of Islam. He spent more than one and a half years on death row in Tehran's Evin prison, before the Supreme Court nullified the death sentence. His detention and conviction sparked nation-wide protest and caused international pressure that forced Iran's hard-line judiciary to sound limited retreat. The new judgement is expected shortly.

[Reports in Bulletin #106, #108, #124].

USA: Lawsuit against Bush's religion-based initiative

The Freedom From Religion Foundation in Wisconsin has filed a lawsuit against the US-government over President Bush's "religion-based initiative". The program, which he launched in the first weeks of his presidency, favors religious organizations over secular professional ones in competing for federal contracts. This is a violation of the First Amendment.

Though Bush's proposals have never been approved by the Congress, they are still being practised on the base of executive orders and regulations. Special agencies have been established to promote religious groups to apply for grants and contracts and to provide them with advise and know-how.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation demands no taxpayer money should be touched for financing "religion-based initiatives" and that social service organizations that include religion as an integral component of their services are excluded from receiving grants and federal contracts.

European Court defends headscarf ban

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled on 29 June that banning of Muslim headscarves in state schools does not violate the freedom of religion. In their unanimous judgment, the seven judges declared that headscarf bans were appropriate to protect the secular nature of the state, especially against extremist demands. Issued in the name of the separation of church and state, such bans could be considered "necessary in a democratic society".

The decision was passed in the case Leyla Sahin vs.the Republic of Turkey. Sahin, a former student of Istanbul University medical college, had been barred from taking an examination as she insisted on wearing a headscarf, violating the official dress code in Turkish state institutions. After loosing her case in the Turkish Supreme Court, she appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which is part of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, whose members include Turkey.

"The principle of secularism was surely one of the founding principles of the Turkish state," the court said in its judgement. "Safeguarding this principle can be considered necessary for the protection of the democratic system in Turkey." Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamist roots, had considered trying to end the headscarf ban but backed off after meeting stiff opposition from the fiercely secular military.

Taking precedence over national court rulings, the pro-ban decision of the European Court strengthens the position of the French government, which may have to face similar cases in September. With the beginning of the new school year the ban on headscarves and other religious symbols in French state schools will come into effect. It could also influence pending cases in several federal states of Germany where Muslim teachers are appealing against headscarves bans.

Norway: Christian fundamentalism at public expense

Norway's tax-payers are shocked. Since years, it turned out, they are financing a rather obscure institute. Skjærgård's School would not reveal much about its curriculum to the educational authorities, but anyway enough to identify it as a Christian fundamentalist outfit. The media found among other curious things that the students have courses in such exotic subjects as speaking in tongues, starting in second standard. Glenn Rasmussen, the school pastor, does not allow the Labor Inspection Authority, to check the health, environmental and safety standards at the school. Nor does he provide an insight into the financial management. It is therefore unknown, if the 85% of the alleged operating costs, which are being paid by the state, include a salary for the institute's executive manager, who seems unavailable for any personal questioning during this millenium. His name is given as "Jesus Christ".