reposted from: NSS Newsline today
Television
Inside a Sharia Court (BBC2, Monday 1 October, 9pm)
According to Ruhl Hamid's fascinating film, 40 per cent of British muslims would like to see elements of Islamic sharia law incorporated in the British legal system. But could this ever be possible, given (for Westerners) its barbaric connotations – the stoning to death of women for adultery and amputation for theft? Hamid goes to Nigeria, where elements of sharia law run alongside the standard western system of justice, to see how the two get along. She and her crew sit in on a sharia court, where a judge decides on social and domestic disputes (there are no lawyers).
There are, thankfully, no stonings (though a woman's evidence in a sharia court is worth only half that of a man and if a woman alleges rape, she has to find four reliable witnesses before charges can be brought), but Hamid doesn't shirk difficult questions and spiritedly tries to pin down the judge, who does his best to hide behind such phrases as "It is divine law. Nobody has the right to change it."
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Actually the question of the punishment of rape is seprate from the hudood (4 witnessess- stoning to death) issue. A number of leading religious scholars in Pakistan were debating the issue today:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=1369