Sharia Law in Ontario?

(I hope I've placed this in the right forum. If not, moderators please forgive and/or move it to the right place. Thanks!)

McGuinty likened to Taliban for sharia stance

By KEITH LESLIE
Thursday, September 8, 2005 Updated at 6:12 PM EDT
Canadian Press

Toronto — Angry demonstrators likened the premier of Ontario to Afghanistan's extremist Taliban leaders Thursday as they urged Dalton McGuinty to dismiss the idea of allowing the use of sharia law to settle family disputes.

About 300 people gathered outside the Ontario legislature for a protest billed as a global campaign to discourage the province from becoming the first Western jurisdiction to permit the use of religious rules critics consider an affront to human rights.

Speaker after speaker told the crowd Mr. McGuinty was naive to suggest that women's rights would not be trampled if Ontario allowed the controversial sharia principles to be used to settle Muslim divorces, custody fights and inheritance disputes.

"These words are not coming from Ayatollahs (or) from Taliban leaders," Iranian refugee Mahmoud Ahmandi told the crowd.

"It's coming from the leader of Ontario's government; shame on you," he said as the protesters chanted "shame, shame."

That sentiment was echoed by Homa Arjomand, who helped to co-ordinate a series of protests Thursday across Canada and Europe comprised of members of 100 different women's and human rights groups.

"Either he (McGuinty) is naive, or he thinks people are stupid," Ms. Arjomand said. "Mr. McGuinty, don't tell me that all these 100 organizations are all a bunch of man-hating criminals who do nothing but make a fuss over an imaginary threat."

Amanda Dale of the YWCA warned McGuinty there would be a political price to pay if his government agrees to include sharia law in the province's Arbitration Act, as recommended in a report last year by former attorney general Marion Boyd.

"I have one very important message for the premier of Ontario: we know the women's vote got you in," Ms. Dale said. "It can also get you out."

Ontario's flirtations with sharia had critics across Canada and around the world standing up in protest.

In Montreal, about 100 people turned out in the rain to protest against the use of sharia law in Ontario. Quebec has passed a law against the use of Muslim tribunals in the province.

Elahe Chokrai-Machouf, head of the Association of Iranian Women in Montreal, said sharia law hurts the rights of women.

"We came here with the hope of living in a free and democratic and secular country," Ms. Chokrai-Machouf said.

Similar rallies were scheduled for Ottawa and Victoria, and Ms. Arjomand said smaller protests were held earlier Thursday in London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dusseldorf, Germany, where about 25 protesters picketed outside the Canadian consulate.

Since December, the Liberal government has been sitting on Ms. Boyd's report, which recommends that the province allow and regulate sharia religious arbitrations in much the same way it does existing Catholic and Jewish tribunals.

Earlier this week, Mr. McGuinty said Attorney General Michael Bryant was still reviewing the report on Shariah and would make his recommendations at some point in the future.

Mr. Bryant's office issued a statement promising "there will be no binding family arbitration in Ontario that uses a set of rules or laws that discriminate against women."

Not everyone at the protest in Toronto was there to oppose Shariah, however.

Mubin Shaikh of the Canadian Muslim organization Nasjid-el-no was verbally attacked by some women at the rally as he tried to dispel what he called the many myths being propagated about sharia, which he supports.

"It is partly racism, because you can see from the comments that people were making, like, 'Go back to where you come from,"' said Mr. Shaikh. "Well, I'm from here."

Mr. Shaikh said the behaviour of Islamic extremists with rigid interpretations of sharia should not be considered mainstream views in the Muslim community.

Ms. Arjomand, meanwhile, said several women who were treated unfairly under Shariah law were afraid to appear at Thursday's rallies because of possible recriminations, which she warned could halt future attempts to stop sharia from being adopted in Ontario.

"If anything happened to these women, the campaign would be ended," she said. "The fear among these communities would be so high, that no one would come out and talk."

"This is a clear message to Mr. McGuinty that we are organizing ourselves internationally," said Ms. Arjomand. "We women, and all human rights organizations, realize this is an attack and it's happening globally, and we have to fight it globally."

This is Canada and we have our own laws. If you don't like em then go to where ever it is that has the laws you like.

I can only agree.. and the second option of the poll says it all.

then it should apply to all religions, one cannot allow arbitration for christians minorities and jews but deny the same right to muslims

I think a better response would be to not allow arbitration from any religious organization...it violates the tenets of separation of church and state...

I have to agree with you, Vanni. Next thing you know, Muslims will want more than one wife. No religious arbitration period.

Been There

Source: The Globe and Mail

I think this says it all: "McGuinty flirting with political Islam is playing a dangerous game," Ms. Armojand said. "He is putting the lives of women and children in jeopardy. Shame."

They should ditch this idea asap. Actually all "religious courts" should be ditched. I see Campbell in BC here is thinking about this as well.

I see now this is not going ahead.

TORONTO — Ontario will not become the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of a set of centuries' old religious rules called Shariah law to settle Muslim family disputes, and will ban all religious arbitrations in the province, Premier Dalton McGuinty told The Canadian Press on Sunday.

Read rest of story here

Thank god. The whole idea was rubbish. It was backwards and anti-progressive. Happy too see our province isn't going down that route.

He did it right though. He's getting rid of Christian and Jewish law too.

That was his problem all along...how do you deny Sharia law while allowing other religions to have their laws used in family court? You can't do that. Religious-based law of any kind had no business being used in Canadian courts anyway, so McGuinty is getting rid of all of it.

I breath a sigh of relief. Ontario woke up and are doing what they have to do. The province almost let their compulsive search for politically correct get them in an intolerable bind that would have been difficult to get out of.

As much as I love belonging to a multi cultural country, I would hate to see canings, stonings, beheadings et al taking place in this country. Isn't this why some of them left their own homelands?

I'm happy with the decision here. I too believe the best route is "one law/ one people" and "separation of church and state" tenets.

I nevertheless wonder how or if this will effect native arbitration settlements. I have no idea of what the legal arguements are, but I understand that there is a inherently different relationship with our First Nation's citizens, and therefore may be cause to an exception in those cases?

It shouldn't affect First Nations at all, passpatoo. They have to abide by the same laws as the rest of us, with some exceptions due to treaties. Those exceptions are based on treaties that were signed over a century ago. Those treaties, and the precedents they set, carry the same weight as international treaties. It has nothing to do with religion.

The only other factor is sentencing circles. Those circles do not change the law though, just seek to more effective punishments than jail. The court decides if a sentencing circle is appropriate for an individual.

That would be even better! avoids a heck of a lot of troubles.

On a minor note Ms. Armojand the spokeswoman for International Campaign Against Shari'a Court in Canada is not a person to be quoting, most of her comments represent a very juvenile approach to a very important issue and she tends to slander consistently about others religions even when its unrelated. Maturity in this debate is of its utmost importance.

In think this debate has been simplified much more than it should have been. Sharia law is more than stonings and beating women. In fact there is no such thing as "a Sharia Law" because just about every country that has "Sharia Law" has a different set of laws.

That being said I think the Ontario Government absolutely made the right decision, and this sharia debate was a very useful tool to change the law so that religions like christianity and judeaism (spelling?) have a little less influence on our lives.

It's certainly true that Christianity is a much more menacing threat to our legal system than Islam and this was a great oppurtunity to get them a little further out of it.....

One of the people in this thread said something about Muslims wanting to have multiple wives in the future.......I would be more worried about Christians trying to make it against the law to have pre-marital sex and stuff like that.....

They are constantly attacking our legal system and trying to change it....like with the marriage stuff....they want to change the law so that only people who follow religious tenets are allowed to be married......next maybe you go to jail for having sex with someone your not married to.......NO THANKS!

Don't ye forget the Mormons too Eh?

Good Ol' Christians they are, I'm sure the particular sect within that preaches poligamy would take a mile when given an inch on the subject too.

Yeah exactly.....theres actually a commune in BC somewhere where they practice polygamy....and the older men marry like 12 year old girls and stuff.....

and the BC gov't won't do anything about it......

once in a while a news story pops up about it...

Unfortunately, Sharia Law might be an improvement over the Family Law Act.

Some of the most inequitious sections are more prejudicial than the provisions of any religious court could ever be.

We all know Shira Law will not be imposed anyplace within Canada or the U.S., but this could be imposed in other Western countries who seemed to have embraced the Muslim faith much more than we have. Could this be the next so called equal right Shira law could impose upon the Western schools.
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has imposed new restrictions on 12 university social sciences deemed to be based on Western schools of thought and therefore incompatible with Islamic teachings, state radio reported Sunday.
The list includes law, philosophy, management, psychology, political science and the two subjects that appear to cause the most concern among women's studies and human rights.
"The content of the current courses in the 12 subjects is not in harmony with religious fundamentals and they are based on Western schools of thought," senior education official Abolfazl Hassani told

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Yikes....I was wondering where all those strange members were coming from until I saw the date of the OP

Thanks for resurrecting that necropost.........Slow day at the ranch??????

roflmao

Of course

Well what did you think protecting religious freedom looks like?