A cautionary tale about Sharia arbitration courts in Canada. From the Globe and Mail, with thanks to Scaramouche:
For months, a Muslim woman living in Toronto tried to wring a divorce out of her local imam.Under sharia law, her husband had to consent to the divorce-- even though he had abandoned the family four years earlier and married another woman in a South Asian country where polygamy is legal.
The imam told her that her spouse wanted $100,000 and all her gold jewellery, she said, asking that her identity not be disclosed because she fears retribution from her ex-husband, the imam and her community.
She managed to bargain him down to $5,000, money she had to borrow. She also agreed to give up all child-support payments and alimony, and not to take legal action against him in the future.
Without his consent, she could not remarry within her religion.
"The imam told me, 'there are some sharia conditions you must follow, we must come to a settlement within sharia.' I agreed because I was desperate," said the woman, 29, who uses the pseudonym Shinaz.
"If the mullah, our religious leader, didn't grant the divorce, then under sharia I would have lost custody of my son when he turned eight. Also, I could not remarry."
Read it all.
Why is she going to the Imam? Sharia law isn't officially recognized in Canada yet. I guess group (Islam community) pressure is too strong. I still can't believe Canada is actually considering this primitive and stupid Sharia.
Yeah, she should have just gone civil court. She could have just walked away from him with all the kids.
For all muslima reading this, there are lots of civil ways to divorce your husbands. Go talk to lawyers and if need be, call the police. I recommend going to a Christian church as well - there are people there that can help you get out of your predicament, and, if you want, out of islam as well.
Your husbands do not have the right to beat you or murder you. They cannot legally do either.
Get out before it's too late.
Imam Geoff
Muslim women: You know not how programmed you are. It's not a divorce from your husband that you want, it's from the twisted ideology that you are subject to. Going to the Imam is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, or like asking Hitler to protct you from the London Blitz.
Western women: are you taking notes?
Poor woman.
People in Ontario, Toronto in particular, would do well to remember the sad story of Farah Khan, the little girl who was taken away from her mother in Pakistan in accordance to a decision taken by village elders acting within the tenets of shariah. Farah was delivered to her father and her father's new wife. They murdered the nine year old child and distributed her body parts in a lakeside park in Toronto in December of 1999.
Shariah did not murder Farah. Her father and stepmother did. However, shariah did facilitate the murder, in blindly removing the little girl from her loving home and turning her over to the care of the people who ultimately murdered her. In contrast, the first consideration in Western family law is always "What's best for the child?"
Shariah and the mindset that goes along with it do not belong in the 21st century. It is scarcely comprehensible that the government of Ontario is contemplating the recognition of such a legalistic abomination.
Makes one wonder what the imam's financial cut was.
Disgusting.
Canadian muslim women seeking divorce.
My advice is similiar to that indicated in previous posts. Agree to anything the Imam and your husband wants, don't make a fuss.
Get yourself out of there and somewhere safe. Then immediately take action in a real Canadian court, plead duress or coercion regarding the Sharia "settlement", and calmly proceed to f--k your husband up the a--e with a genuine Canadian red hot (legal) poker!
Oh that it should be that easy. I suppose that in reality, the problem such women face is pressure/threats from the Islamic "community". As we all know, no muslim group will ever admit to this, insisting that any informal sharia outcomes were reached "voluntarily".
Yeah right.
Not to long ago I attended a political function, in my hometown, and to the political guest I mentioned that the idea of Sharia law was again heading for the fore front of the political agenda. He assured me ,with no uncertain terms that this could never happen in Canada. Our laws and rules and the way our court system works, it would never work in Canada. It wasnt two weeks later it again appeared in the newspapers. According to our premier of Ontario, it was being discussed but no decision has yet been made, and that the minister in charge would soon come up with a recomendation. According to my way of thinking that means a yes has already been decided on and the decision is being bandied around to find the best way to present this to the general public. I pray to GOD iam wrong, but the records will show that it is a good scenario. MUST STOP THIS THING!!!! Wake up people we are being sold to the highest bidder.
Imam Geoff et al:
The woman did obtain a civil divorce and a support order, but wanted a divorce under Sharia so she could remarry in the faith (why, one has to wonder) and, more importantly, so that her ex-husband couldn't come along when their son turned 8 years old and demand custody.
A case such as this one is very important as it shows how incompatible Sharia courts will be with the laws of western jurisdictions.
In order to get her Sharia divorce, not only did this woman have to leave contact with the imam to her male relatives, but she also had to relinquish the support payments she was getting from her ex-husband to get him to consent to the divorce. Talk about being totally contrary to the concept of means-and-need and best-interests-of-the-child, two fundamentals of Canadian family law.
Marian Boyd, where are you?
Most of the rallies against sharia in Canada are now over. We're heading out to make it to the one in Vancouver at 800 Hornby St., the Family Law Courts bldg. It's really simple. We just go.
The most beaten-down woman who ever solicited my legal advice regarding divorce was an american woman married to an Arab muslim. The law was with her in every respect. Her real problem was her lack of personal courage. She wept and wept, but could never bring herself to do anything.
I believe that muslim men often ensnare women who lack personal confidence. These men often woo women who are homely, of average looks and intelligence. The women are given flowers, taken to nice restaurants, and talked up with promises of travel and lots of references to the man's wonderful family, with maybe more than a hint of family money. Once married, the poor girls get pregnant. By the time the baby is a toddler, the woman is well-trapped, and dhimmi has been done.
I have seen exceptions, however. And these make interesting trials in family court. I remember one drop-dead beautiful former Playboy Bunny who was getting a divorce from her slick, slimeball arab husband. He was trying to live off her modeling career, while calling her a whore, slut, prostitute, piece of s**t, etc., and, amazingly, a PIG! (i.e., the usual).
These guys always contest custody of the children, if there are any. Maybe they just want to create problems, as the courts in major cities are mostly wise to the problem of expatriation. Texas courts appoint an attorney to advise the court on behalf of the child, and to advocate for the child, in almost all contested custody cases. The appointed attorneys are usually sharp enough to recommend custody with the mother (absent a drug problem, etc.), and order the ex-husband to have supervised visitation so he can't make a break with the kids. This doesn't always work, however, and every large jurisdiction has the horror story of Daddy somehow gaining access to the child and fleeing the country. The USA has treaties with other countries to ensure international enforcement of judgments, but most of the middle eastern countries routinely ignore the treaties. The State Department MIGHT lodge a protest, but otherwise is of no help. The child disappears into a black hole.
The problem of women falling for the wrong guy is as old as history, and not much can be done about that in general. It is a tragedy that the islamic version is complicated by sharia and by such terrible attitudes toward all women.
I agree witht the questions as to why Shinaz would even want a sharia-sanctioned divorce. Hadn't Islam already caused enough problems in her life? She probably isn't done with her ex-husband. Chances are that he will return at some point to steal their son, as the son is and always will be his posession. Her family may even help in the effort. If Shinaz has any common sense, she should move far away from Toronto with her son, change her name and his name, and really start a new life....minus any vestiges of Islam or any contact with Muslims in her new city.
Anti Sharia Demonstration in Vancouver, Canada:
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people marched during the rally, not stopping to pick up a leaflet, not even to spit. Women of all ages and races, of all levels of income and education completely ignored the issue of their direct futures as they turned their heads and kept on going.
Do they deserve whatever fate holds for them because they will not act of their own volition even in a clear case of needed prudence? Well, there's the gist of it: they are already slaves of their own apathy; and change, good or ill, will not make any difference in their lives, not even if it kills them. They are already nearly dead. Primo Levi sums them up nicely as "The Drowned." They are "The Hollow Men." They are at best the 85 per cent of front-line combat soldiers who will not fire directly at the enemy. They are the meat of the body politic.
Good-bye, Anna Akhmatova. Hello Stalin.
A few dozen middle-aged women showed up at the Family Law Courts in Vancouver this afternoon, some holding hand-made signs denouncing sharia laws in Canada, others stankding waiting thier turns at the microphone to speak to each other and to the assembly.There were some geezers there. I'm sure I spotted at least one duffer. There was a wheezy hacker, and a shy young guy taking photos. a couple of people from the law courts sessions came out, one of whom is convinced the bitch he's suing in Small Claims Court won't even show up.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the rally from this point of view.
Where, oh where, do we go from here?
It seems obvious now that people will not move unless they are led. They will move wherever they are led. They will go to the gas chambers. They will die. They probably won't even complain.
The mind thinks, and the meat moves accordingly.
It's up to you, then, to think and to lead.
Good-bye, Satie. Hello Sorel.
Sonofwalker, it is enough to make Atlas shrug.
I think most people will come around when the battle has escalated almost to its full force. They will wake up, more or less, and join the crowd, the masses, with little intellectual understanding, but with some degree of energy which can be then be employed.
They will not realize that they were part of the problem by not acting sooner. They will not abandon their multiculturalism, but they will make some exceptions in it. They will not suddenly befriend jews if they haven't before, and they will not give up a liberal bent if that is how they have existed for so long. But they will claim always to have been against "those terrorists" and "that horrible religion or philosophy, or whatever it is, of theirs." And they will all know someone who knows someone who was killed or maimed, and that is why they will be against it.
Sonofwalker:
I attended the Toronto rally today and was pleasantly surprised by the turnout - I would guess in the hundreds - perhaps 300-500. I'm not good at crowd estimating. It was mostly middle aged women (about 2/3 women at least) and I would guess the majority would be either NDP or Liberal voters which is a positive sign. If McGuinty's own constituancy is opposed then perhaps he will notice.
Scaramouche (link below) has an excellent summary of the people attending and the speakers. Last year's rally had about 75-100 people with a large contingent of Trotskyites (no kidding). Today's crowd was much larger and very much mainstream even if on the left-liberal side of things.
There were two Mulim protestors that I saw including one young woman (couldn't tell because of the full burka). No kidding - she had a tiny eye slit and everything else was covered. She claimed to be a convert and was Canadian with Polish ancestry - go figure that one out. Nothing like the zeal of a brainwashed convert. Her story sounds plausible as she spoke with an indistinguishable local accent.
I have some photos if there is any way of posting them.
http://www.scaramouche.motime.com/
Thank you johnb! Thank you scaramouche!
I hate Stalin.
I'm exhausted. Tomorrow we can go at it again. I'll sleep easier tonight. Thanks.
Born overseas in a Muslim country, Shinaz immigrated with her family to Canada and studied in a community college in Toronto. At 22, she agreed to an arranged marriage, the norm in her culture.
Shinaz is an observant Muslim
"I did notice in his country that women were treated as second-class citizens."
In 2001, less than a year after arriving in Toronto, he (the husband) left the family. Shinaz went to a Canadian lawyer to work out a separation agreement. According to the agreement, Shinaz got the condo they had bought together and her ex-husband all the assets he had brought to the marriage, including his overseas business.
However, she still needed a religious divorce in order to be free to remarry within Islam.
Under sharia law, her husband had to consent to the divorce—
Without his consent, she could not remarry within her religion...
The imam told her that her spouse wanted $100,000 and all her gold jewelry...
Her imam doesn't speak fluent English and has little knowledge of Canadian Charter rights.
It bothered her that she did not speak directly with the imam, but had to negotiate through her male relatives, another paternalistic aspect of faith-based arbitration, she complained.
This woman is STUPID!
The primary reason to prevent the implementation of Sharia law family courts in Western countries should be to prevent this from happening to other STUPID women.
STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!
Texan said:
I believe that muslim men often ensnare women who lack personal confidence. These men often woo women who are homely, of average looks and intelligence. The women are given flowers, taken to nice restaurants, and talked up with promises of travel and lots of references to the man's wonderful family, with maybe more than a hint of family money. Once married, the poor girls get pregnant. By the time the baby is a toddler, the woman is well-trapped, and dhimmi has been done.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's pretty much it. I know a woman who once dated Muslim men exclusively just for those gifts (most of them, as she told me, were surgeons and made really good money). But there's a lot more to a relationship than just that and I feel sorry for any American woman who gets sucked into the exterior niceties Muslim men display for them,.
Texan said:
I believe that muslim men often ensnare women who lack personal confidence. These men often woo women who are homely, of average looks and intelligence. The women are given flowers, taken to nice restaurants, and talked up with promises of travel and lots of references to the man's wonderful family, with maybe more than a hint of family money. Once married, the poor girls get pregnant. By the time the baby is a toddler, the woman is well-trapped, and dhimmi has been done.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's pretty much it. I know a woman who once dated Muslim men exclusively just for those gifts (most of them, as she told me, were surgeons and made really good money). But there's a lot more to a relationship than just that and I feel sorry for any American woman who gets sucked into the exterior niceties Muslim men display for them,.
Same old story everywhere...
Muslim lives are entirely regulated by imams. It is the Imam who decides who is a Muslim and who isnt. He has power to excommunicate anyone. In Islam men can divorce their wives but not vice versa. All a Muslim guy has to do to divorce his wife is to say "Talaq, Talaq, Talaq" thats it. About an year or so ago in an Indian city of Hyderabad, a man "divorced" his wife under the influence of alcohol, he obviously didnt mean to diorce her. The couple wanted to live but the Imam's got the wind of it and forcibly separated them.