The case at hand concerns a woman who would have her child taken away from her under sharia law if she were to be repatriated to Lebanon. It is, of course, highly ironic that Britain itself has now imported the same set of issues into its own legal system by allowing rulings in domestic sharia courts to be legally binding. It may not be long before the high court must take up sharia rulings within the U.K. -- an unfortunate and costly eventuality.
"Law lords say sharia is 'arbitrary and discriminatory'," by Joshua Rozenburg for the Telegraph, October 22:
The law lords ruled this morning ruled that it would be a “flagrant breach” of the European Convention on Human Rights for the government to remove a woman to Lebanon where she would automatically lose custody of her 12-year old son under Lebanon’s sharia family law.
The woman – referred to only as EM – came to the UK on false documents in 2004 with her son, AF, then aged eight. She has had sole custody of AF since birth but fled from her allegedly violent husband in Lebanon because of laws that automatically award fathers physical custody of their children from the age of seven.
Today’s decision reversed earlier rulings by the Court of Appeal, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and the Home Secretary that returning the woman and her son to Lebanon would not violate her right to family life despite the automatic separation of mother and child.
But the judges stressed that the case was exceptional. The family had to satisfy what Lord Bingham described as a "very hard test": whether removal to Lebanon would so flagrantly violate their rights to family life as to completely nullify those rights there. Lord Bingham said "the effect of return would be to destroy the family life" of the mother and son as it is now lived.
The first judgment was delivered by Lord Hope. His comments on sharia are worth reading in full:
“The appellant came to this country as a fugitive from sharia law. Her son had reached the age of seven when, under the system that regulates the custody of a child of that age under sharia law in Lebanon, his physical custody would pass by force of law to his father or another male member of his family. Any attempt by her to retain custody of him there would be bound to fail. This is simply because the law dictates that a mother has no right to the custody of her child after that age. She may or may not be allowed what has been described as visitation. That would give her access to her son during supervised visits to a place where she could see him. But under no circumstances would his custody remain with her.
“The close relationship that exists between mother and child up to the age of custodial transfer cannot survive under that system of law where, as in this case, the parents of the child are longer living together when the child reaches that age. There is a real risk in all these cases that the very essence of the family life that mother and child have shared together up to that date will be destroyed or nullified.
“This system was described by counsel during the argument as arbitrary and discriminatory. So it is, if it is to be measured by the human rights standards that we are obliged to apply by the Convention. The mutual enjoyment by parent and child of each other’s company is a fundamental element of family life.
“Under our law non-discrimination is a core principle for the protection of human rights. The fact is however that sharia law as it is applied in Lebanon was created by and for men in a male dominated society. The place of the mother in the life of a child under that system is quite different under that law from that which is guaranteed in the Contracting States by article 8 of the [Human Rights] Convention read in conjunction with article 14. There is no place in it for equal rights between men and women.
“It is, as Lord Bingham points out, the product of a religious and cultural tradition that is respected and observed throughout much of the world. But by our standards the system is arbitrary because the law permits of no exceptions to its application, however strong the objections may be on the facts of any given case. It is discriminatory too because it denies women custody of their children after they have reached the age of custodial transfer simply because they are women. That is why the appellant removed her child from that system of law and sought protection against its effects in this country.”
But Lord Brown sounded a word of caution:
“It is certainly not the arbitrary and discriminatory character of the rule of sharia law dictating that at the age of seven a child’s physical custody automatically passes from the mother to the father (or another male member of his family) — wholly incompatible though such a rule is with certain of the basic principles underlying the Convention — which, uniquely thus far in the jurisprudence both of Strasbourg and the UK courts, qualifies this particular ‘foreign’ case as one for protection under article 8. Rather it is the highly exceptional facts of the case (as set out in my Lords’ opinions) which in combination provide utterly compelling humanitarian grounds against removal."
I hope they boot out both the illegals and the Sharia.
I wonder what those who claim that "sharia law goes further than the Declaration of Human Rights in granting women's rights" would say about that. But it would be even better to see that pathetic dhimmi Lord Phillips, who claimed that sharia law is perfectly OK for the UK, confronted on his support for that barbaric legal code in the face of a case like this Lebanese mother's.
Of course, whenever I read claims that sharia law has anything to do with human rights, I can't help thinking how similar such a statement is to claiming that Hitler was someone who did a lot for the welfare of Jews.
One is hopeful until one notices the little grain of poison. Here it is ...
I.e. It is not a matter of basic principles.
I.e. It is rather the particular set of arbitrary concrete details of this particular case.
It is a one-off. A single one of a kind concrete set of superficial details, not to be considered in terms of basic, universal and permanent principles.
So this guy gets the answer right, and then proceeds to contradict himself.
This is the problem with pragmatism. It is the key problem with our educational practices and methods (at every level). And it is also the problem with our culture.
And (you know where I am going with this) this is also why we are not winning the war of ideas and stand a very good chance of losing the whole shooting match.
Friends in the UK - this case should give you a 'hook' for explaining to your acquaintance, quietly and damningly, exactly what Sharia is, and all the horrid things, all the gross abuses of Universal Human Rights, that it permits and prescribes.
You could start with the fact that under sharia a man can divorce his wife simply by saying 'I divorce you' three times; that after a divorce there is no alimony, and a man (as witness this particular case) has sole total custody of all children over the age of 7; and that wife-beating is permitted as per the Quranic prescription (then throw in some of the stats for the horrific levels of domestic violence in assorted Muslim countries - you'll find lots of evidence in the archives here).
Then pile on the shock factor: that forced marriage to prepubescent girls, and sex with one's nine-year-old wife, is permitted (cite Khomeini's legislation and those girls in Yemen and Saudi Arabia trying to get divorced - at age 8!). Tell people about Saba Masih in Pakistan: Christian girl, all of 13 years old, kidnapped by Muslims, raped by Muslims, 'converted' to Islam under duress, 'married' to the son of her kidnapper/ slavemaster, and - having been forced, god alone knows by what means of 'persuasion', to state in court that she is 17 rather than the age to which her official birth certificate bears witness (!!), must now remain with her rapist-husband, since the Pakistani court has regarded her statement of age as trumping the evidence of the birth certificate. Whatever advances Islam.. *spit*. Explain that this sort of treatment meted out to a Christian girl is absolutely typical of the abuse to which non-Muslims living in Muslim lands, have always been subjected.
Then add that under sharia female evidence (whether given by the victim or by any other female witnesses) in a sexual crime, such as that of rape, is regarded as absolutely inadmissible, so that a woman, having been raped, if the rapist denies it, and there are no other witnesses, will be...executed for committing the crime of immorality.
Throw in that under sharia, if it comes down to the word of non-Muslim victim against Muslim perp, all the perp has to do is swear black and blue he didn't do it (or trump up a false charge of, for example, blasphemy, against his victim) to get off scot free - since the word of a Muslim *always* trumps that of a non-Muslim.
Lift up that rock labelled 'sharia' and show people the mouth of Hell yawning beneath it.
Get people angry!
Show them that sharia, in all sorts of ways, but especially in its permission of slavery, and its total denial of anything even slightly resembling human dignity and human rights, to either women or non-Muslims, is an abomination in the sight of all decent and civilised human beings.
U.K.'s highest court: Sharia law is "arbitrary and discriminatory"
NO!
But is Islam the perfect system! It elevates women! It protects the poor! It is just! It reflects the rules of Allah, not some silly human law!
I don't think that Muslims have figured out that Allah, being a god, is not on their side.
Agree, joeblough. Few argue, much less act, from principles these days.
Well, at least the "Lord" with a brain is named Hope.
How any free-world nation could ever even propose a set of laws which go directly against objectivism, which are inherently discriminatory, which are inherently abusive, whose sole purpose is to codify the fact that in that sick line of thinking some people are people and some are objects to be bought, owned, used, exploited, and discarded by those inherently tyrannical people is just beyond me.
God, we need to leave the UN. We need to stop dealing with nations which don't uphold the UDHR, which don't hold free elections (which is the US if the Dems get their way and felons can vote but the votes of our military, the people who are willing to die in some desert hellhole for their nation, don't count), and which don't sign on to the Geneva Conventions. That would include Britain. We need to lay ground rules that state that any nation that does not meet all 3 of the above criteria is not to be recognized by the Free World. That would end that slippery slope we're all on, what with Sharia in Britain and Obama trying to take away my 1st and 2nd Amendment rights.
Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 651231.stm
3 October 2008
A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.
Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.
The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies.
The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair.
Sheikh Habadan, an ultra-conservative cleric who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd.
"sharia is 'arbitrary and discriminatory'"
Gee, ya think? (They're just figuring this out now - AFTER it's been put in place?)
Sharia law is like 19th century laws in Britain which discriminated against women. I wonder how many more centuries Muslims will need before they catch up with the 21st century?
"The law lords ruled this morning ruled that it would be a “flagrant breach” of the European Convention on Human Rights for the government to remove a woman to Lebanon where she would automatically lose custody of her 12-year old son under Lebanon’s sharia family law".
Yeah, now she'll just live under sharia, UK style.
It's milder than Lebanon's but give it a little time-full dhimmitude hasn't set in throughout the entire West yet.
Sharia law is like 19th century laws in Britain which discriminated against women. I wonder how many more centuries Muslims will need before they catch up with the 21st century?
Posted by: londongirl [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 23, 2008 10:18 AM
Sharia is much worse than 19th century English laws; at least they didn't sanction wife-beating, honor killing, child marriage, etc. As for catching up with the 21st century or the 25th century, islam will never catch up; how could it when it is immutable? We can hope that muslims in the West will abandon their fanaticism and adapt to the civilized world but that doesn't look encouraging either, despite the allure of freedom that the "experts" claim is an innate human hunger.
Muslims cannot even define freedom because freedom does not exist in islam. Freedom is an alien, evil concept to muslims, a trap inviting sin and damnation. Islam has survived the centuries only because of its totalitarian nature and the inculcation of fear. Freedom would destroy islam so it must be sustained by fear and force, and it won't catch up with the civilized world for centuries, if ever.
What do Islam's learned imams say about Muslims who reject Sharia law? Is it perfectly OK? The article doesn't mention whether the woman is a Muslim. Does Sharia law in Lebanon apply to non-Muslims too? I guess if the father is a Muslim that's all that matters.
Cases such as this should not be clogging up our courts. This woman should not even be in the UK. It is not up to the UK to provide sanctuary for illegals who don't like the regime they live under.
So what if she has to hand over her kid to the father? I couldn't care less. Madam: stop wasting my taxes and sling yer 'ook!