Dr Williams wants some aspects of Sharia law with in the UK legal system.

Poll reveals 40pc of Muslims want sharia law in UK
By Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite
Last Updated: 12:14am GMT 20/02/2006



Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today.

The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity.


50pc said interracial relations were worsening
Overall, the findings depict a Muslim community becoming more radical and feeling more alienated from mainstream society, even though 91 per cent still say they feel loyal to Britain.

The results of the poll, conducted for the Sunday Telegraph, came as thousands of Muslims staged a fresh protest in London yesterday against the publication of cartoons of Mohammed. In Libya, at least 10 people died in protests linked to the caricatures.

And in Pakistan, a cleric was reported to have put a $1 million (£575,000) bounty on the head of the Danish cartoonist who drew the original pictures.

Last night, Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP involved with the official task force set up after the July attacks, said the findings were "alarming". He added: "Vast numbers of Muslims feel disengaged and alienated from mainstream British society." Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "This poll confirms the widespread opposition among British Muslims to the so-called war on terror."

The most startling finding is the high level of support for applying sharia law in "predominantly Muslim" areas of Britain.


Sadiq Khan: 'Alarming'
Islamic law is used in large parts of the Middle East, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, and is enforced by religious police. Special courts can hand down harsh punishments which can include stoning and amputation.

Forty per cent of the British Muslims surveyed said they backed introducing sharia in parts of Britain, while 41 per cent opposed it. Twenty per cent felt sympathy with the July 7 bombers' motives, and 75 per cent did not. One per cent felt the attacks were "right".

Nearly two thirds thought the video images shown last week of British troops beating Iraqi youths were symptomatic of a wider problem in Iraq. Half did not think the soldiers would be "appropriately punished".

Half of the 500 people surveyed said relations between white Britons and Muslims were getting worse. Only just over half thought the conviction of the cleric Abu Hamza for incitement to murder and race hatred was fair.

 

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/20/nsharia_120.xml

 

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britan=british=british law

In the british their defense theirs pretty much no religion in their court system so making a difference between muslims and others would be like making a difference between black and white or male and female

 

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Not exactly. I believe that if the stolen good/s is above a certain value the person's hand can be cut off, to that I say - good. Criminals deserve that. Shariah law targets the real criminals and punishes them, ordinary people are protected and have nothing to fear - unlike the current climate we find ourselves in. Shariah law protects the weak, if a person is going hungry and as ends up stealing food, no harm can reach him, just like the person that steals medicine in desperation.

I also believe the person that has been wronged (had goods stolen from him/her) can forgive the criminal and that’s the end of it.

Some Muslims? what does that mean? And 'Shariah law' means lots of different things to different people. It’s a meaningless statement.

And no one said the UK has to change its laws, no one is forcing their way of life on anyone. I doubt any person in the UK has had to change their way of life because of Muslims or any other religious group.

 

Thank you for immediately establishing your credibility.

 

Besides the point, look at the bigger picture.

 

You may be in favour of barbarism; we have outgrown it. You agree that if a thief steals goods above a certain value his hand should be amputated. Do you think the stolen goods should be valued at their ex-factory price, their wholsele price or their retail value. Should we allow for flutuations in our currency when working out the value of imported goods ?

And now you are playing that worn out card of the religious. The sharia means lots of things to different people. Can you explain why that is so? And at the same time , who you think is right and who wrong and for what reasons. With differing interpretations, they can't all be right, can they ?

 

Ghost, re your advice to Repo.

Yes , he overlooked floggings, public beheadings, and stoning. It always pays to look at the bigger picture.

 

If Muslims or anyone else chooses to undergo some form of mediation by a third party, I don't think there is anything wrong with that, as long as it doesn't contradict the law of the land. Christians sometimes get an "anullment" through the church, it's no different than settling out of court.

 

I agree there is nothing wrong with that. But will it stop there. Something tells me that once we have a precedent we may be on a slippery slope.

 

That's up for the lawmakers to decide. I doubt the US or the UK are ever going to adopt sharia into their code. A judge could say, "look, we can use the court's time to decide this, but wouldn't it be better if you just agree to use an informal religious board instead?".

 

Or state vs federal...or state vs a different state or contractual arbitration (private law in a private court) vs state or federal courts? Having different overlapping jurisdictions and different sets of laws that might apply to the same issue is not really that big a deal in a civil context. Canon law, rabbinical and ecclesiastical courts have existed along side governmental courts for a long time, and we have conflicting court and legal systems here.

Besides, as the Archbishop noted, there already are separate religious courts in Britain, just not for Muslims. See for example, this article about British rabbinical courts, applying Jewish law:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7233040.stm

Should Britain shut down the rabbinical courts?

 

That is fair because no one is forced to have their case tried according to an alternative system. It's a choice.

 

Rabbinical courts are informal, meaning there is no obligation on jews to use them. This would not be so if sharia were introduced.

The Brirish legal system has gradually broken the stranglehold which religion haed on it. It has moved to a point wher it is almost completely secular. It would be a retrograde step to allow religion to exert any influence today.

All are equal under UK law. Under sharia, women are regarded as inferior. You may not be aware that limited sharia was introduced in Canada but was soon abolished because of an outcry from Muslim women.

I am not bothered whether rabbinical courts stay or go. As I have said above they are informal. Sharia would be binding on Muslims and would be a retrograde step as far as hard-won womens' rights is concerned

 

Sharia courts could be just as informal.

 

the big question is : is sharia law an all-or-nothing affair (my suspicion is that this is the case) + how much of sharia law is compliant with the british legal system ? i suspect that the fit is only partial and that the bits that don't fit will in the end cause a major headache if you ever tried to apply both

 

In Israel, though, it's not a choice. Who ever files first chooses the venue (subject to the jurisdictional rules of the court itself). Husbands therefore tend to choose rabbinical courts (because Jewish law is generally favorable to husbands) and women tend to file in civil court. Women do not have the right to "remove" the case to civil courts, if it was duly filed in rabbinical court before she filed her petition in civil court. (In fact, civil courts are prohibited by statues from entertaining such a case in those circumstances.)

Similarly in the U.S. if I file a lawsuit in Texas (because I think the law favors me there), the defendant has no choice in the matter (even if the defendant lives in, say, Louisiana or outside the U.S.) so long as the Texas court's rules give them jurisdiction and the forum is not so inconvenient as to trigger "forum non conveniens" rules. If a defendant lives in Louisiana but works in Texas, I can easily choose to sue him in either State, without his consenting to it, even though the two states have substantively different laws. (Every two states have fundamentally different laws, but Lousiana law is based on the French civil law tradition rather than the English common law tradition. Texas law is based in common law.)

Consent may certainly make it "fair", but a lack of consent doesn't necessarily render the forum "unfair."

 

Well, I would not be in favor of that kind of system. But an informal alternative might be acceptable.

 

why not just stipulate that both parties must agree to the case being herd in the religious courts or it will be transfered to civil court???

that would fix your problem there and then and if they get no work well who cares????

 

And treat women as equals just as they are treated under British lawe ? I think not. Tht's why Muslim women fought against the introdction of sharia in Canada. Do you not think it possible that they had good reason to do so ?