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Sharia in northwest Pakistan. Friend and Ally Update from The Associated Press, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Lawmakers from an Islamic coalition ruling Pakistan's deeply conservative northwest on Monday approved a controversial law to set up a Taliban-style department to suppress vice.The law establishes a unit led by an Islamic cleric to promote virtue and eliminate vice, with a separate police force to implement its orders. According to the legislation, the department would help fight government corruption, eliminate child labor, and ensure rights for women and religious minorities.
The province's governor must sign the law, and it was not immediately clear when the legal procedure would be completed.
The assembly passed the same bill last year despite the opposition of the central government. But the provincial governor had refused to sign it into law, objecting that it aimed to set up a parallel police system....
"Dictatorship by clerics is not acceptable," chanted female opposition lawmaker Begum Nighat Yasmin Aurakzai, denouncing the measure.
Provincial Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani hailed the new law.
"We had promised an Islamic system to the nation and approval of the Hisbah Bill is an important step in that direction," Durrani said in the assembly after the bill was passed as lawmakers from his ruling alliance chanted "God is great."
The proposed accountability department is reminiscent of the feared Vice and Virtue police of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, which barred women and girls from school and work and banned nearly all forms of entertainment under its strict interpretation of Islamic laws.
The Taliban police would beat women if they ventured out of their homes uncovered and publicly punished men for not offering prayers or growing beards.
The cleric leading the proposed department in Pakistan would be supervised by a six-member council comprising two other clerics, two lawyers and two government officials.
The hard-line Islamic coalition that rules the province gained power in parliamentary elections in 2002 mainly on a platform of opposition to the U.S.-led anti-terror war that toppled the Taliban.
While life in the conservative province hasn't changed markedly under the coalition's rule, its government has taken some measures toward implementing Islamic law. It has banned music on public buses, prohibited male doctors from treating female patients and restricted men from watching or coaching female athletes — acts it deems as against Islam.
An opposition lawmaker rejected the new law, saying it promoted the draconian stance of the Taliban regime.
"This bill will encourage steps for the Talibanization of the province," said Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, a lawmaker from the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party.
Posted by Robert at November 13, 2006 11:37 AM
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This is enlightenment, Islamic style.
I do agree with their saying "God is great". Too bad they believe in Allah, who is quite dreadful.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 13, 2006 12:34 PM
So whats new? This is Islam at work.
Posted by: faqi at November 13, 2006 1:25 PM
If they'd simply leave the rest of the world alone I think it would be fine for many societies to self-strangulate. Unfortunately they wish to impose the same thing on the rest of the world.
Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses at November 13, 2006 1:29 PM
How many 'female' doctors or dentists are there in Pakistan? How is a 'female' doctor trained when she has to go to class with (shudder) men? Is there an all 'female' medical school in Pak? Sounds like not too many Paki women will get medical treatment. Oh well, Allah knows best, if he wants those ladys to get sick and die, with little or no treatment, then thats what will happen...Allah is most merciful, compassionate and kind...
Posted by: duh_swami at November 13, 2006 1:32 PM
Duh_swami, muslim women are expendable. The muslim males just go get a new 8 year old for a wife.
Posted by: freewoman at November 13, 2006 2:14 PM
Oh, good idea, because this worked so well in Afghanistan. I see more pictures of smiling kids with severed hands on a stick getting passed around the internet.
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at November 13, 2006 2:21 PM
Let's hope that they inivite Karen Armstrong for a visit. I am certain that her presence in NW Pakistan's neo-Taliban province would reinforce her opinions of the benign nature of Islamists.
Posted by: FirePig at November 13, 2006 3:52 PM
Is this like the Department of Peace that John Conyers wants our government to set up?
Posted by: the poetess at November 13, 2006 5:25 PM
Legistlation of morals and conduct,
always a mohammedan entry
in the race for human decency.
at November 13, 2006 5:27 PM
Q: What's the difference between the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Police in Sunni and Shiite Islam?
Pretty scary to think that both branches of Islam, when given similar and ideal opportunities to implement their version of holiness on earth, deliver basically the exact same formula of brutality and oppression in Islam.
Saudi Arabia, blessed (?) with unlimited unearned wealth has used that wealth to implement the most retrograde and draconian society on earth. This is Sunni Islam for you in its ideal form. Today we can see this formula in Saudi Arabia, but Pakistan, Iraq's Sunni regions (the "Triangle of Death"), and formerly with the Taliban in Afghanistan as well.
Iran, blessed (?) with unlimited unearned wealth has used that wealth to implement the most retrograde and draconian society on earth. This is Shia Islam for you in its ideal form. Today we can see this formula in Iran and in Iraq's Shia regions (the majority of the Iraq hell hole).
What gives? Is this all Islam has to promise? All who defend Islam in any way must first explain why these nations are in any manner good, in any manner humane, in any manner to be emulated by anyone anywhere. If they can't do that, then they should not defend Islam.
All the discussions about Sunni Shiite rifts among the pseudo-intelligentsia and government apparachiks, all the minutia supposedly separating the Arabs from the Persians, or Muslims in America from Muslims in Europe, or this Islamic tribe from that Islamic tribe, ALL of it is inconsequential in the final analysis.
You either get hanged, chopped, murdered, and terrorized into "submission" by one thug in a dark balaklava calling himself a Shiite enforcer of Islam, or you get hanged, chopped, murdered, and terrorized into "submission" by another thug in a dark balaklava calling himself a Sunni enforcer of Islam.
at November 13, 2006 6:17 PM
The Taliban police . . . publicly punished men for not offering prayers or growing beards.
I have read some opinions about beards in Islam and believe that it is not mandatory to grow one. It does depend on local requirements. One aspect of having a beard is for Mulsims not to imitate infidels. So if we all grew beards, which I detest, Mulsims would really have a problem. Perhaps if the word got out that we thought Muslims were imitating Robert Spencer or Monty Wooley or Gabby Hayes, beards might disappear in Islam.
From JSLA: All the discussions about Sunni Shiite rifts among the pseudo-intelligentsia and government apparachiks, all the minutia supposedly separating the Arabs from the Persians, or Muslims in America from Muslims in Europe, or this Islamic tribe from that Islamic tribe, ALL of it is inconsequential in the final analysis.
I beg to differ, Islam is about detail - wudu, beards, prayers, eating, clothing, jewelry, and things I haven't read about yet. It is serious business concerning who is the proper successor to Mohammed. Each sect considers followers of the other sect to be heretics and suitable for kiling or subjugation. We must ensure that Mulsims are killing and subjugating one another in mass quantities.
at November 13, 2006 8:59 PM
jsla raises a very good question:
"Q: What's the difference between the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Police in Sunni and Shiite Islam"
I have thought about this question long and hard in its more general sense the question is what is the real difference between sunni and shiite islam?
Virtually nothing. It is quite extraordinary what each has in common. Kill the infidel? yes! Kill the apostate? yes! Dar al islam dar al harb? Yes! Women worth 1/2 a man and must be property of a man whereby woman is not seen or heard? yes! Take infidel's property as bounty to the faithful? yes! Slavery is legal today? Yes!
Beat your wife? Yes. Jesus died on the cross? Both believe no! (Judas died on the cross and Judas had it coming). The binding of Ishmael? Both yes. Ishmael and Ibrahim were agreed that Ishmael be sacrificed. Yes! Sacrifice an animal to god today as culmination of the "holy" month of Ramadan? yes!
The similarities far outweight the differences. What these sects seem to have that is different is that the in Sunnite islam the ruler must come from an elder Saudi tribe whereas in Shiia Islam the ruler must come from Persian religious leaders. But this is not a real difference. Shiia Islam is Islam persianized! More importantly, the differences are not real differences because both claim the right to murder the other and have been murdering the other since inception of Shiia Islam or since the murder of Ali by Sunnite followers.
at November 13, 2006 9:11 PM
BBC frightened of criticising Islam, says archbishop
Posted by: ummahnewslinks at November 13, 2006 10:40 PM
Sneaky expression 'ensure rights for women and religious minorities'. The missing word is *equal*.
Posted by: Lili at November 14, 2006 2:49 AM
"Legislation of morals and conduct,
always a mohammedan entry,
in the race for human decency."
Poetess, that was beautiful!
Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at November 14, 2006 8:43 AM
There must be alot of vice up their in that part of pakistan.
Posted by: callmeinfidel at November 14, 2006 3:18 PM
Didn't Charles and Camilla recently visit that area of Pakistan? Where are the vice squad when you need them!!
Posted by: callmeinfidel at November 14, 2006 3:19 PM
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