MUSLIM LAW IS TYRANNY AGAINST WOMEN

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Wed, December 22, 2004

Sharia has no place here

By PETER WORTHINGTON

OUTRAGEOUS AS it is, former NDP attorney-general Marion Boyd wants sharia law introduced into Ontario to resolve Muslim domestic disputes. It's hard to think of anything with a greater potential for misery and heartache to women than sharia law. Yet it is a step closer to becoming reality in Ontario.

Ms Boyd was appointed by the McGuinty government to relate sharia law to the 1991 arbitration act that Ms Boyd was involved in legislating as a member of the NDP government. Talk of conflict of interest!

Catholics and Jews can arbitrate domestic disputes within their faiths, and Ms Boyd apparently sees no fundamental difference between them and sharia law for Muslims.
In fact, there is a hell of a lot of difference.

Catholics and Jews don't discriminate against women the way sharia law does by violating fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution for equal treatment.
Under some interpretations of sharia, a woman who is raped is guilty of tempting the man. Showing an ankle is tantamount to enticement. A Muslim husband has the right -- duty even -- to beat his wife if she's disobedient. A Muslim who converts to Christianity technically could face a death sentence.

Apologists insist this is mostly symbolic, but who's to say?
In its extreme form, as with the Taliban of Afghanistan, on select Fridays in Kabul women who were deemed guilty of violating sharia law -- like leaving their houses, or showing their faces -- were taken to the football stadium to be humiliated.
Some were beaten, some were shot. That won't happen here, but it's sharia law and the pressure on women will be acute.


Ms Boyd says Muslim women will have a choice -- be adjudicated by sharia law, or Ontario law, and have a choice of adjudicators .
In theory, maybe, but in practice -- look at how many abused women haven't the strength to defy their abusers.

Ms Boyd may be emotionally wedded to the arbitration act she helped devise, but why would she ignore those who actually know and have had experience with sharia law?
Like the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, which pleaded with her to reject sharia and stick with Canadian law?

FANATICS WOULD REJOICE

Why would she not listen to Tarak Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, who passionately and convincingly argues that sharia should never be implanted in Canada.
Many have come here to escape the tyranny of sharia.

I've spoken to Fatah, and he's adamant that Ontario should not allow sharia to gain a foothold here.

He's not so concerned about abuses here (there will be, but that's human nature and inevitable) but is concerned that Ontario's decision would be trumpeted throughout the Islamic world as vindication and acceptance of sharia.

"It will be presented as Canada adopting sharia law -- not just a segment of it, but all of it. And it will be used by militants as propaganda to expand its extreme principles."
I hadn't thought of that --- and it's doubtful Marion Boyd has.

Attorney-General Michael Bryant and his boss, gaffe-prone Premier Dalton McGuinty, will make the final decision.

It will indeed be foolish if they don't reject the recommendation.
Sharia law has no place in civilized society, no matter how benignly it is depicted. It dates back to the 14th century and does not treat the sexes equally.
Period.

In Ontario it may not be used to order women stoned to death for behaviour it tolerates in men, but it is a matter of degree.

There is no need for it in Canada. It is not religious freedom, it is religious oppression.
Listen to the Council of Muslim Women and rational Muslims like Tarak Fatah, and not the Canadian Islamic Congress, which sees itself as the sole interpreter of sharia law.