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Women and sharia
A new report in the UK
from the
Centre for Islamic Pluralism, showing
that Muslim women suffer discrimination and
gross bias in sharia adjudications, has been
welcomed by the new
One
Law for All campaign, which is supported
by a variety of organisations and
individuals.
Maryam Namazie tells us more
about women under Islam in the UK, and
brings us news of a symbolic demonstration
planned for 7 March in London.
The research provided by
this report – from the
Centre for Islamic Pluralism –
reinforces our own findings that sharia
councils and Muslim arbitration tribunals
are discriminatory and unfair. However, the
solution to the miscarriages of justice is
not the vetting of imams coming to the UK,
as the report has recommended, but an end to
the use and implementation of sharia law and
religious-based tribunals.
At present, these sharia-based
bodies are growing and appear to have some
sort of official backing. But they are
leading to gross injustices among women who
are often unaware of their rights under
Britain’s legal system.
This perspective was
reiterated in the
One
Law for All Campaign’s launch on 10
December last year in the House of Lords at
which campaign supporters Gina Khan, Carla
Revere, Ibn Warraq, Keith Porteous Wood and
I spoke. The meeting was chaired by Fariborz
Pooya, head of the
Iranian Secular Society.
Gina Khan, a secular
Muslim, said, “Under British law, we are
treated as equal and full human beings.
Under the antiquated version of sharia law
that Islamists peddle, we are discriminated
against just because of our gender. These
Islamists use our plight by meddling in
issues like forced marriages, domestic
violence and inheritance laws for their own
political agenda.
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Gina Khan:
“These Islamists
use our plight” |
“To allow them to have
any sort of control over the lives of Muslim
women in British communities will have dire
consequences.”
She added, “Sharia courts
must be a pressing concern, not just for
Muslims but for all those living in Britain.
Anyone who believes in universal human
rights needs to stand united against the
discrimination and oppression visited upon
Muslim women.”
Carla Revere, chairperson
of the Lawyers’ Secular Society, said, “Such
self-appointed, unregulated tribunals are
gaining in strength; they increasingly hold
themselves up as courts with as much force
as the law of the land, but are not
operating with the same controls and
safeguards.
“They appear to be
operating in the area of family law and some
even in criminal matters, where they have no
right to make binding decisions as they
claim to do. Even if the decisions were
binding, UK courts do not uphold contractual
decisions that are contrary to UK law or
public policy. We call on the government and
legal establishment to stand up for the
vulnerable and tackle this significant and
growing problem, rather than ignoring it.”
Custody of
children
The writer Ibn Warraq
said, “Sharia does not accord equal rights
to Muslim women. In regards to marriage, she
is not free to marry a non-Muslim, for
instance; [nor] in regards to divorce,
custody of children, inheritance, the choice
of profession and freedom to travel, or
freedom to change her religion.
“In other words, Great
Britain, in allowing sharia courts, has
contravened the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights of
1948, and all the other more legally binding
United Nations Covenants on Discrimination
and the Rights of Women [. . .]
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Ibn Warraq:
“Great Britain [. . .] has
contravened the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights”. |
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“Multiculturalism is
turning communities against each other; it
is fundamentally divisive. We need to get
back to the principles of equality before
the law, principles that so many people
fought so hard to achieve for so long.”
Keith Porteous Wood,
executive director of the
National Secular Society, said, “Sharia
is becoming a growth industry in Britain,
putting growing pressure on vulnerable
people in the Muslim community to use sharia
councils and tribunals to resolve disputes
and family matters, when they could use the
civil courts. Sharia law is not arrived at
by the democratic process, is not Human
Rights-compliant, and there is no right of
appeal.”
Isolation of
Muslim women
The writer and journalist
Joan Smith, who was unable to speak at the
launch, sent the following message:
“This campaign is very
important because many people in this
country – including politicians – have yet
to realise the isolation of many Muslims,
particularly women, from the wider society.
Some of them are already under intolerable
pressure from their families, and the
principle of one law for everyone is a
protection they desperately need. That’s why
I give this campaign my wholehearted
support.”
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Joan Smith |
I’ve included here a
number of links to material of interest.
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You can read the BBC
news website report on the findings of
the Centre for Islamic Pluralism
here.
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To find out more or
support the One Law for All Campaign
against Sharia Law in Britain click
here.
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To listen to Gina
Khan’s speech at the 10 December One Law
for All Campaign against Sharia Law in
Britain launch, click
here.
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I also gave a speech
at the launch, which you can see by
clicking
here.
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To listen to Carla
Revere’s speech at the launch, click
here.
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To hear Ibn Warraq’s
speech at the launch, click
here.
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Keith Porteous Wood’s
speech can also be seen, by clicking
here.
Campaign
signatories
Now we come to some of
the notable signatories to the campaign. As
you can see, there are a lot of them, but I
feel it is important to list them here, to
give some idea of the support this campaign
has so far achieved.
Nazanin Afshin-Jam,
Coordinator,
Stop Child Executions Campaign, Canada;
Mina Ahadi, spokesperson, Council of
Ex-Muslims of Germany, coordinator,
International Committee against Stoning,
Köln, Germany; Sargul Ahmad, activist,
Women’s Liberation in Iraq, Canada; Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, Writer, Washington, DC, USA.
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Equal Rights Now
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Mahin Alipour,
coordinator,
Equal Rights Now: Organisation against
Women’s Discrimination in Iran,
Stockholm, Sweden; Homa Arjomand,
coordinator,
International Campaign Against Sharia Courts
in Canada, Toronto, Canada; Farideh
Arman, coordinator, International Campaign
in Defence of Women’s Rights in Iran, Malmo,
Sweden; Abdullah Asadi, executive director,
International Federation of Iranian
Refugees, Sweden; Ophelia Benson, editor,
Butterflies and Wheels, USA; Susan
Blackmore, psychologist, UK.
Nazanin Borumand, Never
Forget Hatun Campaign against Honour
Killings, Germany; Roy Brown, past
president, International Humanist and
Ethical Union, Geneva, Switzerland; Ed
Buckner, president, American Atheists, USA;
Marino Busdachin, general secretary,
Unrepresented Nations and People’s
Organisation, Netherlands; Center for
Inquiry, USA.
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, UK;
Council
of Ex-Muslims of Germany, Germany;
Council of Ex-Muslims of Scandinavia,
Sweden; Caroline Cox, peer, House of Lords,
London, UK; Austin Dacey, representative to
the United Nations, Center for
Inquiry-International, USA; Shahla Daneshfar,
central committee member, Equal Rights Now –
Organisation Against Women’s Discrimination
in Iran, London, UK;
Richard
Dawkins, scientist, author of The God
Delusion (among others), Oxford, UK.
Patty Debonitas, TV
producer,
Third Camp Against US Militarism and Islamic
Terrorism, London, UK; Deeyah, singer
and composer, USA; Nick Doody, comedian, UK;
Sonja Eggerickx, president, International
Humanist and Ethical Union, Belgium; Afshin
Ellian, Professor, Leiden University Faculty
of Law, Leiden, Netherlands; Equal Rights
Now – Organisation Against Women’s
Discrimination in Iran, Sweden.
European
Humanist Federation, Belgium; Tarek
Fatah, author, Chasing a Mirage: The
Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State,
Toronto, Canada; Caroline Fourest, writer,
France; Tahir Aslam Gora, writer and
journalist, Canada; A C Grayling, writer and
philosopher, London, UK; Maria Hagberg,
chair, Network against Honour-Related
Violence, Gothenburg, Sweden; Johann Hari,
journalist, London, UK; Christopher Hitchens,
author, USA.
Farshad Hoseini,
activist, International Campaign Against
Executions, Netherlands; Khayal Ibrahim,
coordinator, Organisation of Women’s
Liberation in Iraq, Arabic anchor for
Secular TV, Canada; International Committee
Against Executions, Netherlands;
International Committee against Stoning,
Germany; International Humanist and Ethical
Union, UK; Iranian Secular Society, UK.
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Shakeb Isaar:
singer and
TV presenter. |
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Shakeb Isaar, singer, Sweden; Maryam
Jamel, activist, Women’s Liberation in Iraq,
Canada; Keyvan Javid, director, New Channel
TV, London, UK; Alan Johnson, editor,
Democratiya.com, Lancashire, UK; Mehul
Kamdar, former editor of the Modern
Rationalist, USA; Naser Khader, founder,
Association of Democratic Muslims, Denmark;
Hope Knutsson, chair, Sidmennt, Icelandic
Ethical Humanist Association, Iceland.
Hartmut Krauss, editor,
Hintergrund, Germany; LAIQUES – Région PACA,
Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France; Stephen
Law, editor, Royal Institute of Philosophy
journal, London, UK; Shiva Mahbobi,
producer, Against Discrimination TV
programme, London, UK; Houzan Mahmoud,
abroad representative, Organisation of
Women’s Freedom in Iraq, London, UK; Doreen
Massey, peer, House of Lords, London, UK.
Anthony McIntyre, writer,
Ireland; Caspar Melville, editor,
New
Humanist magazine, London, UK; Bahar
Milani, activist, Children First Now,
London, UK; Tauriq Moosa, writer, Capetown,
South Africa; Reza Moradi, producer,
Fitna
Remade, London, UK; Douglas Murray,
director, Centre for Social Cohesion,
London, UK;
Taslima
Nasrin, writer and activist, National
Secular Society, London, UK.
Never Forget Hatun Campaign Against Honour
Killings, Germany; Samir Noory, writer,
Secular TV manager, Canada; David Pollock,
president, European Humanist Federation,
London, UK; Revolutionary Association of the
Women of Afghanistan, Pakistan; Fahimeh
Sadeghi, coordinator, International
Federation of Iranian Refugees-Vancouver,
Vancouver, Canada; Michael Schmidt-Salomon,
chief executive officer,
Giordano Bruno Foundation, Germany;
Udo
Schuklenk, philosophy professor, Queen’s
University, Canada; Sohaila Sharifi, editor,
Unveiled, London, UK; Issam Shukri, head,
Defence of Secularism and Civil Rights in
Iraq, central committee secretary, Left
Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, Iraq.
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Udo Schuklenk,
professor of philosophy, Queen’s
University,
Canada. |
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Bahram Soroush, founding
member, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain,
London, UK;
Peter
Tatchell, activist, London, UK; Hamid
Taqvaee, central committee secretary,
Worker-Communist Party of Iran; Union des
Familles Laïques – section Arles-Istres,
France; Union des Familles Laïques – section
Marseille-Aix-en-Provence, France; Afsaneh
Vahdat, coordinator, Council of Ex-Muslims
of Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden; Marvin F Zayed,
president,
International Committee to Protect
Freethinkers, Ottawa, Canada.
Thousands of
messages
Meanwhile, thousands of
messages have been received from people in
Britain and across the world in support of
our
One Law for All Campaign Against Sharia
Law in Britain since its launch. In less
than a month, the campaign has mobilised the
support of many well-known personalities and
organisations and gathered more than 5,000
signatures.
On Saturday, 7 March, we
plan to hold a symbolic demonstration from
3.30 to 4.30 p.m. in the Northern Terrace of
Trafalgar Square (we will be organising a
mass demonstration in November), then march
from 4.30 to 5.30 p.m. from there to
Conway Hall and end with a public
meeting entitled “Sharia Law, Sexual
Apartheid and Women’s Rights” from 6 to 8
p.m. Conway Hall is at 25 Red Lion Square
WC1R 4RL (the nearest Underground station is
Holborn), for map, click
here.
Perhaps we’ll see you
there. I hope so.
Maryam Namazie
is a political activist of
Iranian descent,
known for, among other things, her
activities for women’s
rights, asylum
seekers’ rights and gay rights, and
for her fight against the
Islamic republic and
political Islam internationally. She
is also the leader of the
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain.
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