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Judicial Murder: A Crime Against Humanity
When first I read of the judicial murder of a 16 year
old child by an Iranian Islamic court I could have cried. Surely
this must be a crime against humanity? Current thinking on this issue
can be glimpsed in the blue box below. The Islamic judge who sentenced
this child to death by hanging (actually strangulation) was in an obvious
position of authority. According to some reports he even put the
noose around her neck. It matters not that the judge acted according
to Islamic Sharia law; what he did was a crime against humanity.
He is no better than a common criminal. How long will it be before
the medieval disregard for civil rights exemplified by Islamic jurisprudence
runs up against the modern world? What then? Let's hope things
get resolved before countries like Iran become nuclear enabled! |
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CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
"Clause 4 (3) would define the offences of crime against
humanity, genocide, and war crime as follows:
'crime against humanity" means murder, extermination,
enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution
or any other inhumane act or omission that is committed against any civilian
population or any identifiable group and that, at the time and in the place
of its commission, constitutes a crime against humanity according to customary
international law or conventional international law or by virtue of its
being criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by
the community of nations, whether or not it constitutes a contravention
of the law in force at the time and in the place of its commission'. ...
Clauses 5 and 7 would define "military commander" to include
a person in effective command as well as a person in command of police
with a comparable degree of authority and control. "Superior" would be
defined as any person in authority other than a military commander. This
definition would include civilians in positions of authority". More
.../ |
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| ATEQEH
RAJABI |
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Of Peadophile Rape and Temporary Marriage
Unfortunately the above judicial murder is not an isolated
incident. Iran is a hotbed of human rights violation. It is
so reminiscent of Nazi Germany. The only significant difference is
that Iran murders individuals because of a crackpot gender-based ideology
whereas Nazi Germany used "race". Iranian women are little more than
breeding machines with domestic duties. Passive creatures fit only
for the sexual gratification of men. Under Sharia law a child of
9 years old can be "married" according to Iranian Muslim clerics.
In the UK sex with a child of that age would be prosecuted as judicial
rape. This is not just a whim of soft-hearted Western liberals but
is based on a sound moral philosophy. The issue turns on the matter
of informed consent. It is the evidence-based opinion of child psychologists
and paediatricians that children under the age of about 14 years old cannot
give informed consent to sex. Even if the child agrees to sexual
relations, because there is no informed consent, any sexual activity is
therefore rape. What makes this issue even more distressing in the
case of Iran is the Shia Muslim practice of "temporary marriage". |
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| "There are so many laws in Islam that will turn off any
educated person completely. One such law is the Shiih custom of Sigeh,
or temporary marriage. I call it the religiously sanctioned prostitution. Marriage
in Islam is a contract between a man and a woman¹s guardian for a
specified length of time. In a permanent marriage a man marries a woman
for 99 years because no one is supposed to live that long. In reality most
husbands die way before this period is over since they marry in their late
thirties and early forties. And women who have been given away by their
guardians when they were quite young get a chance to live alone in peace
the rest of their lives. In a temporary marriage, the man specifies the
term of the contract. He asks a woman or her guardian if she would marry
him for any amount of time from 10 minutes to an hour, a week, or some
months for a specified amount of money. If she or her guardian agree to
the terms then they are married and the marriage is annulled when the time
has elapsed." Source
... |
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| In Iran, especially in rural districts, men have been
known to trade daughters as young as 9 years old in "temporary marriages"
to pay off debts (This also happened
in Afghanistan under British administration). Pedophile rape.
What a way to pay off your debts. Remember also that this is not
an illegal activity, but is sanctioned by Shia Muslim jurisprudence.
Sunni Muslims, by contrast, are very critical of "temporary marriage".
They have called it prostitution.
So why is the UK government so silent on this issue?
Why are we British so keen to cuddle up to the Iranians? Why do we
spend so much time fretting over alleged Israeli human rights issues but
ignore very real human rights violations by Iran? Could oil have
anything to do with it? |
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| The UK and much of the EU appear to base their Middle
East foreign policy on two considerations. These are access to oil
and access to markets for manufactured goods, especially military weapons.
This is probably also true of the Russian Federation, but less so of the
USA. Were it not for the USA I am convinced that by now the Arabs
would have committed a second genocide of Jews to add to the European genocide
(i.e. the Holocaust). Although I have no doubt that the USA makes
a formidable competitor in international markets, in some respects Americans
appear more idealistic than their European counterparts. Whether
you agree with this analysis or not, should we allow concerns about the
Middle East to dictate UK domestic policy?
Endorse Forced Marriages and Appease the Extremists?
The UK government has just decided not to outlaw forced
marriage. Commentary in the London "Times" reported: |
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| "THE lives of young women might be ruined by the Government’s
failure to make forced marriages illegal, a senior police officer has warned.
Commander Steve Allen of the Metropolitan Police said
that a decision by ministers last month to drop proposed legislation had
been greeted by some ethnic minorities as a signal that forced marriage
was acceptable.
His concern about the about-turn, which was partly prompted
by fears that the new law would stigmatise Muslims, is shared by a Crown
Prosecution Service director and the head of Scotland Yard’s Homicide Prevention
Unit. The head of a South Asian women’s charity said yesterday that girls
were already suffering the consequences of the decision.
Between 2003 and 2005, 518 forced marriages were recorded
in London, and in 2005 more than 140 in Bradford. Campaigners say those
are merely the tip of the iceberg." "Despair
as forced marriages stay legal" By Andrew Norfolk |
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| I am a keen supporter of multiculturalism, but there
are fault-lines in this policy that need to be addressed. What happens
when religious or cultural norms clash with domestic UK legislation?
Take, for example, the issue of inheritance. If a woman is negatively
discriminated against in, say, religious law regarding inheritance as compared
with UK domestic legislation how should we proceed? My own view is
that we should go with UK domestic legislation. Not to do so would
be paramount to importing discriminatory law into UK legislation.
This is what appears to have been done in the case of forced marriage.
This represents a partial Islamisation of UK domestic legislation.
One of the most serious misunderstandings I come across
regarding Muslims is the notion that there is such a thing as "Muslim opinion".
So you hear some people say, "Muslims believe this .." or Muslims believe
that ...". The suggestion that Muslims are a uniform group of people
who share a common opinion is as dangerous as it is racist nonsense.
If you care to read the "Times" article above in full you will discover
that there are Muslims who definitely wanted forced marriages banned.
This is most certainly not a them and us issue.
Forced marriage suggests a lack of consent on the part
of the woman (I don't think this is a male issue). Is forced marriage
not thus rape? Supposing a young woman is tricked into visiting Pakistan
on the pretext of seeing the "old country". Once there she is told
that she is to be married. She succumbs to the threats and
reluctantly participates in a wedding ceremony. Surely when her "husband"
subsequently "takes" his non-consenting "wife" he is a rapist and
she is the victim of rape? I know there are some nutty sociologists
who believe we should respect cultural differences come what may, but what
of universal human rights? Rape is rape no matter how it is dressed
up.
As mentioned above, Islamic marriage is based on "...
a
contract between a man and a woman¹s guardian for a specified length
of time". This reflects the fact that in Islamic law a women
is never her own person. Her guardian as a child is her father; as
a wife her husband and as a widow her son or other male relative.
She is never free. She is in the full sense of the word, the property
of a male relative. This is why forced marriage has been termed as
gender slavery. As the UK government has chosen not to ban forced
marriage does this mean that it endorses it? This is how I am sure
some Muslims will interpret the government lack of action.
Finally, is this yet again the UK government attempting
to appease radical Muslim opinion, both here and in the Middle East, to
the disadvantage of both liberal Muslims and the UK public generally?
One thing is for sure and that is that the truth about forced marriage
can only further stigmatise all Muslims. If the government really
wants to improve the image of the UK Muslim community then dump forced
marriage and address the human rights violations that underpin this
practice. |
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Links to various websites commenting on Ateqeh Rajabi's
judicial murder.
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