Britain has 85 sharia courts: The astonishing spread of the Islamic justice behind closed doors

You —

At least 85 Islamic sharia courts are operating in Britain, a study claimed yesterday.

The astonishing figure is 17 times higher than previously accepted.

The tribunals, working mainly from mosques, settle financial and family disputes according to religious principles. They lay down judgments which can be given full legal status if approved in national law courts.

However, they operate behind doors that are closed to independent observers and their decisions are likely to be unfair to women and backed by intimidation, a report by independent think-tank Civitas said...

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You — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 - 00:46

Dozens of sharia courts are giving illegal advice, claims Civitas report

Dozens of sharia courts are giving illegal advice, claims Civitas report

Dozens of sharia courts in the UK are regularly giving illegal advice on issues including marriage and divorce, a report published today claims.

Decisions concerning marriages not recognised under English law, polygamy, and disputes regarding children are being made by at least 85 sharia courts, according to the report by the thinktank Civitas.

There is no clear divide between the functions of imams and the sharia courts. An imam who conducts a marriage which is not registered and then advises on disputes within that marriage acts in breach of the law and outside the scope of the sharia court's role, Civitas say.

"Some of these courts are advising illegal actions," said Denis MacEoin, a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic studies who wrote the report. "And others transgress human rights standards."

Read more @ The Guardian

You — Wed, 1 Jul 2009 - 02:40

Responses to Civitas report on Shari’ah courts

Denis MacEoin has published yet another of its Islam-bashing reports, this time attacking “Shari’ah courts” in the UK, or rather, Muslim arbitration tribunals (more here). The Daily Mail led this morning with the revelation that “Britain has 85 Sharia Courts”, which quotes the Civitas director David Green as alleging that “for many Muslims, sharia courts are in practice part of an institutionalised atmosphere of intimidation, backed by the ultimate sanction of a death threat”, a fantasy based on prejudices about “how Muslims behave”, with no need for actual evidence.

This seems to be yet another pamphlet composed out of the findings of a trawl across the internet. The press release tells us that “it is extremely difficult to find out what goes on in these courts, so MacEoin reproduces a range of fatwas issued by popular online fatwa sites, run out of or accessed through mosques in the UK”. So his findings are based on online fatwas not issued by the same people who run the panels. Clever.

Read more @ Indigo Jo Blogs

You — Thu, 2 Jul 2009 - 15:25

from the feed aggregator I came across an article from the Guardian's comment is free section: Sharia law and me (well, most of my quoted ones are)

She argued against Shariah tribunals etc in there. Some good arguments, some bad. The good: they are ad hoc, may not have proper structures.

The bad: When her father died, her half brother got some of the inheritance - more than her and if it had been British law, he would (probably) have got nothing. Seemed selfish of her to want him to have nothing.

In the second example she presented, it was not really anything to do with "shariah courts": some people had not got their marriage registered with the authorities and when one of them died, things were harder for the spouse as they were not officially married.