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UK has 80 plus sharia courts
AS many as 85 fundamentalist sharia courts are now operating in the UK -- far more than was thought. It was believed there were just five of the hard-line courts in Britain, but a report out today says the number is much higher.Experts predict the growing quantity could lead to difficulties in applying usual British legal standards to Muslims. Dennis MacEoin, author of the report, said the only sharia courts previously known about were in London, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham and Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. He said: "This is not a matter of eating halal meat or seeking God's blessing on one's marriage. "It is a challenge to all of us to live in a society as free as possible from ethnic-religious division or communal claims to superiority and a special status that puts them in some respects above the law to which we are all bound." In his report, published by the think-tank Civitas, he states many of the courts operate out of mosques and their rulings are closed off to non-Muslims. He includes a list of previous sharia judgments he believes give an indication of the type of ruling being handed down by the courts working in the UK. Among the examples quoted are laws banning a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim unless he converts to Islam and the removal of a wife's property rights in the event of divorce. The report states: "Among the rulings ... we find some that advise illegal actions and others that transgress human rights standards as they are applied by British courts." Some UK sharia courts work as part of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) system which works with British law to deal with commercial, civil, and matrimonial matters and some instances of domestic violence and neighbourly disputes. Posted by: tipper 2009-06-29 |
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