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Sharia courts 'as consensual as rape', House of Lords told
MUSLIM women in Britain are being forced to "live in fear" because of the spread of unofficial and unregulated sharia courts enforcing Islamic rules, the House of Lords was told. Rulings by informal religious "councils" and tribunals are sometimes no more "consensual" than rape, peers were told.The warnings came in the first ever full Parliamentary debate on the subject in the UK. Baroness Cox, the independent peer and Third World campaigner, last year tabled a private member's bill in the Lords setting out plans to rein in a network of unofficial self-styled "courts" which apply Islamic principles. One study estimated that there are around 85 Sharia bodies operating in Britain, although there is no official estimate. They include legally recognised arbitration tribunals, set up primarily to resolve financial disputes using Islamic legal principles but which have taken on a wider range of cases. There is also a network of informal Sharia "councils", often operating out of mosques, dealing with religious divorces and even child custody matters in line with Islamic teaching. The bill, which had its first full debate yesterday, would make it a criminal offence for such bodies to style themselves as courts or those chairing them to pose as judges. It would also limit the activities of arbitration tribunals and explicitly require them to uphold equality laws including women's rights Posted by: tipper 2012-10-20 |
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