Saturday, April 15, 2017

The Failure of Open Borders in Germany and Sweden - Joseph Klein




by Joseph Klein


Chancellor Merkel finally admits the obvious connection between refugee flows and increased security concerns.




German Chancellor Angela Merkel has just woken up to the fact that terrorists have been entering her country under the guise of would-be asylum seekers. “There is no doubt that among the so many people who have sought shelter in our country were also persons who have become the focus of the security authorities,” Chancellor Merkel acknowledged. However, as if to exculpate herself from any responsibility, she added, “we should not forget that our country was already in the sights of Islamic terrorism before the many refugees came to us.” Her latter observation begs the question as to why she was so reckless in opening up Germany’s borders to a veritable flood of refugees, without any careful screening, in the first place.

With the upcoming election in mind as she seeks a fourth term, Chancellor Merkel was most likely trying to appear strong in reacting to the latest in a string of radical Islamic terrorist attacks in her country. Terrorists linked to ISIS are suspected of having detonated three bombs on Tuesday, next to a German soccer team bus in the town of Dortmund, which the chancellor called a "repugnant act."

In September 2015, Chancellor Merkel boasted of how welcoming Germany was to the self-proclaimed refugees pouring in from the Middle East, Afghanistan and North Africa. "The right to political asylum has no limits on the number of asylum seekers," she said.  "As a strong, economically healthy country we have the strength to do what is necessary." She opened Germany’s borders to nearly a million migrants and refugees from the world’s most terrorist ridden regions.

In 2016, Germany began to reap the horrors of the seeds of radical Islam and jihad that Chancellor Merkel had so enthusiastically planted.  For example, ISIS claimed responsibility for the deadly December 19th truck assault on an outdoor Christmas market near a landmark church in Berlin, which killed 12 people and injured nearly 50 other victims. The individual who had allegedly carried out the attack was a 24-year-old Tunisian man whom had traveled to Italy from Tunisia in 2011 and spent time in an Italian jail before arriving in Germany in 2015. Last summer, there were four violent attacks in Germany within just a week’s time, which resulted in deaths and serious injuries. Two of them were committed by Syrian migrants. A third was committed by an Afghan asylum seeker. The fourth, a mass shooting in Munich, was committed by the German-born son of Iranian asylum-seekers.

Like Chancellor Merkel’s Germany, Sweden opened its borders to so-called refugees, only to find its once peaceful society turned into a haven for radical Islamic terrorists. Sweden has become “a place to Islamize," as the Gladstone Institute put it. The Swedish Security Service, according to the Gladstone Institute report, “admitted great concern over the possibility that foreign jihadis might take advantage of the Swedish asylum system -- through which more than 90% of refugee claimants gain permanent residency status, despite lacking passports or identifying documents -- by ‘hiding among the refugees.’”

Sweden had admitted 80,000 asylum seekers in 2014. It admitted more than 160,000 in 2015, which exceeded any other European Union state per capita. The 2015 total included 51,338 asylum seekers from Syria, 41,564 from Afghanistan, 20,857 from Iraq and 5,465 from Somalia. Instead of assimilating into Swedish society, asylum seekers and other migrants from Muslim majority countries have re-created their violence prone, Islamist culture in Sweden.

Sweden has since begun placing more restrictions on admission of asylum-seekers in response to jihadist-inspired acts of violence. But the die has been cast. 

In February, a riot broke out in the largely immigrant Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby. According to a report in Nordstjernan, Rinkeby is known as “’Little Mogadishu’ because of the number of Somalis living there. Rinkeby is also the center of the recruiting efforts of al-Shabab, a group with ties to al-Qaida.”

Last Friday, a truck was driven into a crowd of people in a Stockholm shopping center, killing 15 people and injuring at least 15 others. “Sweden has been attacked,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven declared. “This indicates that it is an act of terror.” The suspect is said to be an ISIS sympathizer from Uzbekistan. The attack followed the pattern of prior ISIS-inspired acts of terrorism weaponizing vehicles, which were seen in Nice, Berlin and London.

Germany and Sweden have been the most open in welcoming would-be “refugees” from terrorist-prone Muslim majority countries. Their reward has been jihadist-inspired acts of terror and spikes in violent crimes by individuals from an alien culture who refuse to assimilate into their host countries. While the pro-refugee and open border progressives try to obscure the truth, the failure of the German and Swedish experiments in opening their borders to refugees and migrants from terrorist-prone countries proves that President Trump’s extreme vetting approach is the correct one.

Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266412/failure-open-borders-germany-and-sweden-joseph-klein

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Israel's deceptively quiet northern front - Yoav Limor




by Yoav Limor

Originally posted as "Looks can be deceiving"

The Har Dov sector on the Israel-Lebanon border may appear serene, but the threats lurking within the pastoral view are volatile and tangible • On the ground, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah are palpable, and IDF troops are always on high alert.



Israeli soldiers in one of the outposts on Har Dov
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Photo credit: Ziv Koren


Yoav Limor

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=41759

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Drain the Higher Ed. Swamp That Produced the 'Hang Trump' Prof. - Bruce Thornton




by Bruce Thornton


Lunatic lecturer is only a symptom of a larger disease.



Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

The uproar over a Fresno State history lecturer’s tweets about assassinating President Trump is understandable, but in the end the outrage is pointless. It’s doubtful the feds will charge the fellow, given how outlandish and obviously hyperbolic the tweets are. Nor is he likely to be fired. All the commotion has accomplished is to turn a nobody into a left-wing martyr persecuted for “speaking truth to power.”

The fact is, there is nothing this guy said that wouldn’t be applauded by most faculty in the social sciences and humanities, even if they don’t have his gumption to say so out loud. The politicized university is entering its fifth decade, and was already a done deal when Alan Bloom publicized it in his surprising 1987 bestseller The Closing of the American Mind. Thirty years later, focusing on the stupid statements of individual professors, or in this case lecturers, does nothing to get at the root of the problem. They are symptoms of deeper structural changes in the administrative apparatus of most colleges, and these changes in part have been responses to federal laws, particularly affirmative action, sexual harassment law, and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. With federal agency thugs backing campus leftists by threatening administrators with investigation or the reduction of federal funds, it has been easy to transform the university from a space for developing critical thinking and intellectual diversity, into a progressive propaganda organ and reeducation camp.

The most important of these government-backed instruments is “diversity.” This vacuous concept was created ex nihilo by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell in the 1979 Bakke vs. University of California decision as a way to protect admissions “set asides” for minorities without falling afoul of the law’s prohibition of quotas. Since only a “compelling state interest” could justify exceptions to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s ban on discrimination by race, which naked quotas obviously did, “diversity,” along with all its alleged social and educational boons, was by judicial fiat deemed a “state interest.” In 2003, Grutter vs. Bollinger, and again in the two Fisher vs. University of Texas cases (2013, 2016), the Supreme Court confirmed Powell’s legerdemain in order “to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body,” as Republican-appointed Justice Sandra Day O’Conner said in the first Fisher case.

Of course, there exists no coherent definition of “diversity,” and no empirical evidence demonstrating its power to improve educational outcomes or create “educational benefits.” If there were such pedagogical benefits from diversity, we would have long ago dismantled the 107 historically black colleges and universities. On the contrary, there is much evidence that mismatching applicants to universities damages minority students and segregates campuses into identity-politics enclaves.

But using race to privilege some applicants over others wasn’t just about admitting students. The campus infrastructure had to change, which meant the expansion of politicized identity-politics programs, departments, general education courses, and student-support administrative offices and services. As a result, the cultural Marxism ideology that created identity politics in the first place now permeates the university far beyond the classroom, and enables an intolerance for competing ideas, not to mention shutting down the “free play of the mind on all subjects” that Matthew Arnold identified as the core mission of liberal education. And this corruption is encouraged by federal law and its leverage of federal money that flows into higher education.

So the issue isn’t a two-bit adjunct and his juvenile tweets. All the rancorous attention being given to him may make some conservatives feel better, but it will do nothing other than turn a nobody into a somebody. This bad habit is indulged by conservative outlets like Fox News: to entertain their viewers, they dig up some second-rate professor or blogger, and bring him on a show to be slapped around by the host. But in that person’s world, he is now a star, with credibility and a megaphone he would have paid Fox to give him. Getting angry at such a person is like blaming a dog for the stinking mess it left on your lawn. Of course it stinks, that’s its nature. The real culprit is the neighbor too lazy or inconsiderate to walk his dog and clean up after it.

What we should be talking about, then, is getting at the real causes of the corrupt university, not the predictable byproducts of those causes. Take the problem of leftists shutting down conservative speakers in order to reinforce their intolerance of opposing points of view. This could be solved with a Department of Education “dear colleague” letter informing college administrators that they will be held accountable if they do not use campus police to remove disruptive protestors and protect the audience and speaker’s Constitutional right to free speech, the heart and soul of a genuine college education. And if such behavior continues––or if the university imposes astronomical fees on the organizers, as UC Berkeley did to cancel the appearance of Freedom Center founder David Horowitz––the offending campus could be hit with an investigation by the DOE’s Division of Civil Rights, and the reduction or elimination of federal funds. That’s how Obama’s DOE back in 2011 set off the current plague of campus star-chambers persecuting alleged sexual offenders with unconstitutional investigations and hearings.

More important, Congress needs to pass legislation revising sexual harassment law and tightening its overly vague language like “hostile” and “intimidating.” Likewise with Title IX, an open-ended invitation for any subjective, neurotic, or even psychopathic perception to turn disliked behavior into legally sanctioned “discrimination” requiring investigation and prosecution. These bad laws, and the politicized interpretations of them by politicized federal agencies, are the source of the “microagression” and “safe space” nonsense now metastasizing throughout college campuses. Tightening up the language of the law, and mandating investigations and financial penalties for institutions that abuse it, would do much more good than yelling at another childish faculty member who said something stupid. Saying something stupid is pretty much what most professors outside the sciences and some professional schools do for a living.

The Fresno State lecturer is being investigated for his comments, and some are calling for him to be fired. I doubt that the investigation will lead to anything. Saying “Trump must hang” or Republicans should be executed is not proof of an actionable plot to assassinate the president or commit murder. During Bush’s two terms, there were numerous fantasies of assassination and even a movie on that theme. I’m not aware that any of the writers or film producers ended up being charged. Such rhetoric is considered political speech, at best warranting an investigation to make sure the person involved is just a dope rather than a credible threat.

As for firing the guy, good luck with that. As a lecturer, he does not have tenure, but adjuncts in the Cal State system enjoy three-year renewable contracts which can be terminated only for budgetary reasons or for a sustained, documented record of lousy teaching or dereliction of duty, such as not showing up for class.  Without such evidence, the faculty union would probably fight any attempt to fire him just because he tweeted some nonsense that embarrassed the university president and angered Fox News. And with the high profile this Trump-hater now enjoys, trying to fire him will likely turn him into a martyr for academic freedom and the First Amendment.

There is, however, one thing taxpayers can do to punish universities, and that is to withhold donations. If you’re wondering why Fresno State’s president followed up his initial mealy-mouthed response to the tweets with a promise to cooperate with the feds, I’d put my money on a barrage of phone calls from irate deep-pockets donors. A modern university president is pretty much a glorified fund-raiser and public relations hack, so hitting the campus in the wallet is a good way to get his attention. If more donors did that, nonsense like making campuses “sanctuaries” for illegal aliens, as every campus in the Cal State system has done, would stop.

But the offending lecturer? That’s a dog-bites-man story in the university. Focusing on him merely gives him a profile he could never earn otherwise. He is a symptom, not a cause. If we want to drain the fetid swamp of higher education, first get Congress and Trump’s DOE to reform bad laws.


Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now available for purchase.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266410/drain-higher-ed-swamp-produced-hang-trump-prof-bruce-thornton

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The element of surprise - Boaz Bismuth




by Boaz Bismuth

Hat tip: Dr. Jean-Charles Bensoussan

They thought Assad could butcher his people unhindered • They thought Trump was in Russia's pocket • But then the American president launched 59 cruise missiles and sent a clear message that everything they thought about him was wrong.



U.S. President Donald Trump
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Photo credit: Reuters


Boaz Bismuth

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=41765&hp=1

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Norway: Threat of Jihad - Judith Bergman




by Judith Bergman

Unvetted immigrants and radicalization in prison are the two greatest sources of terror threat

  • Norway seems to be making the same poorly thought-out choices as Britain.
  • It has apparently not occurred to these authorities that encouraging Muslims in prison to study the Quran and hadiths, with their exhortations to jihad against the "infidels", may in itself serve to radicalize the inmates.
The Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) just published in February its yearly threat assessment. It concluded -- as did its threat assessment for 2016 -- that Norway might experience an Islamic terrorist attack from Islamic State (ISIS) sympathizers acting upon ISIS's call to carry out independent attacks. The PST explains:
"These calls to action are one reason why we have seen an increase over the last few years in the number of lone terrorist attacks in the West. The likeliest scenario for a terrorist attack in a Western country is an ISIL-/AQ-inspired attack carried out with a simple weapon against a target with little or no protection".
"Lone wolf" attacks are rightly described as an actual terrorist strategy, rather than what the media likes to describe as random "mental illness". In addition, this threat assessment now fits all of Europe.

The PST goes on to warn:
"Immigration to Europe will influence the terrorist threat in various ways in the coming year. One of the problems we expect to face is the radicalization of asylum-seekers, migrants and illegal immigrants in Norway. Attempts may be made to radicalize members of these groups by other migrants at reception centers or by visitors. As in previous years, individuals who support and sympathize with extreme Islamist organizations will arrive in Norway in 2017".
The security risks inherent in unvetted migration are clearly spelled out by the PST. Migration to Norway in 2016 was at a record low of 3,460 asylum seekers -- the lowest since 1997. The reason, according to Norway's Directorate of Immigration, is that "... border and ID checks in Europe have had a decisive effect on numbers of arrivals in Norway". Even so, the Directorate of Immigration estimates that double that number, or around 7,000 asylum seekers, will arrive in Norway in both 2017 and 2018.

The PST mentions another source of future jihadist attacks:
"Radicalization in prisons is a phenomenon that will become more common in Norway in 2017. There are a number of individuals currently in prison as a result of national investigations of travelers to Syria, and in 2017 more of them will be prosecuted for violation of the terror provisions in Norwegian law. This means that there will be an increasing number of prisoners in Norway who have played a role in extreme Islamist groups here and who also have operational experience gained abroad. It is likely that extreme Islamists will retain their convictions in prison and attempt to radicalize others. Attempts have already been made to radicalize other prisoners, including individuals sentenced for gross violence".
Radicalization happens on a large scale in prisons, amply illustrated by experience in British prisons. The most recent example was Khalid Masood, who targeted the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge, murdering four people and injuring at least 50 others in a stabbing- and car-ramming attack. Masood is thought to have been radicalized while serving time in prison. This trend is likely in Norwegian prisons as well.

The PST, however, perhaps out of a lack of experience with imams in Norwegian prisons, appears to overlook an important source of radicalization. The British government review of extremism in British prisons, for example, revealed that Muslim chaplains, who are appointed by the Ministry of Justice, were distributing radicalizing literature -- misogynistic and anti-gay pamphlets and tracts endorsing the killing of apostates -- to inmates. The author of the review, Ian Acheson, said that he found staff lacked the training to confront and deter Islamist extremist ideology, and were often fearful that if they did, they would be accused of racism.

Norway, nevertheless, seems to be making the same poorly thought-out choices as Britain. In 2015, Ringerike prison said it planned to introduce imams into the prison. "We are now about to enter into a partnership with an imam who will conduct seminars for Muslims," prison governor Håkon Melvold told VG newspaper. "In addition, we will create philosophy groups with participation from various faiths."

Terje Auli, prison chaplain at Oslo prison, said that prisons should help Muslims to practice their religion. "It is obvious that we counteract extremism when we facilitate the practice of religion in prison," he said. It has apparently not occurred to these authorities that encouraging Muslims in prison to study the Quran and hadiths, with their exhortations to jihad against the "infidels", may in itself serve to radicalize the inmates. Why should Islam play any role in prisons to begin with?

Norway recently appointed a Pakistani-educated imam, Najeeb ur Rehman Naz, to be the first Muslim chaplain of the Norwegian military. Before the appointment, Norwegian military chaplains were exclusively Christian. In 2012, the military itself suggested the introduction of chaplains representing "other religions and life philosophies". There was a small uproar when it came to light that a year earlier, Najeeb ur Rehman Naz had given online advice to a woman in a forced marriage to the effect that although he considered forced marriage wrong, once she was in the marriage it was her obligation to respect the duties and responsibilities of the marriage. He backed up this view with a reference to the Quran -- which, oddly, some Norwegian politicians found to be surprising. Why should an imam educated in Pakistan not cite the Quran when giving advice? Moreover, the idea that imams might tell women to stay with their husbands, regardless of whether or not their marriages were forced, should not startle anyone who has even the most rudimentary knowledge of women's subjugated position within Islam.


Najeeb ur Rehman Naz, recently appointed the first Muslim chaplain of the Norwegian military, gave advice to a woman in a forced marriage that it was her obligation to respect the duties and responsibilities of the marriage. Pictured: Head military chaplain Brigadier Alf Petter Hagesæther (left) congratulates Naz (right) on his appointment as military chaplain, March 1, 2017. (Image source: Norwegian Armed Forces/Torbjørn Kjosvold)

Repeatedly, Western societies seem "surprised" by their own willful blindness when it comes to Islam. In the case of Norway, the Police Security Service has laid out clearly the dangers of radicalization and the extant risks of jihadist terror against Norway. But is anybody listening?


Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10192/norway-jihad

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French presidential election could see far left, far right matchup - Rick Moran




by Rick Moran

Support for the establishment candidates of the center-left and right is falling away

Something extraordinary is happening in France, as the presidential election is looming less than two weeks away. Support for the establishment candidates of the center-left and right is falling away, while a former Trotskyite and the far-right candidates are on the rise.

Centrist Emmanuel Macron and conservative François Fillon were thought at one time to be the frontrunners who would battle it out in the second round of presidential voting next month. The first round takes place on April 23, where the top two finishers will move on.

But Fillon's campaign has been racked by scandal, and Macron has been closely identified with the current administration of President Hollande. This has given an opening to a radical far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose soak-the-rich platform includes a mandatory 100% tax on French incomes over 360,000 euros. Melenchon has surged from single digits to draw within just a few points of the lead.

His rise has coincided with the strength being shown by Marine Le Pen, whose National Front party's anti-immigrant, anti-E.U. platform is resonating with many French voters.

The latest polling suggests there is a chance for a Le Pen-Melenchon match-up in May for the presidency.

Reuters:
An Ipsos-Sopra Sterna poll showed independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and Le Pen tied on 22 percent in the April 23 first round, with Melenchon and conservative Francois Fillon on 20 and 19 percent respectively.
That 3 percentage point gap separating the top four was within at least one of poll's margin of error, suggesting the race remains wide open.
Polls have consistently shown Macron would comfortably win the second round should he qualify for the May 7 vote.
But the most striking trend in past days has been the late surge in support for Melenchon, a former Trotskyist who would pull France out of NATO and, like Le Pen, possibly the European Union too.
In the second poll showing the top four within three points of each other, BVA pollsters said: "All scenarios are possible for April 23."
"A second round with Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen remains the most likely hypothesis, but nothing excludes that Francois Fillon or Jean-Luc Melenchon would qualify instead," BVA said.
Polls show that about a third of France's 45.7 million voters might abstain. While some analysts say a higher turnout would favor Macron and Fillon, BVA said the Le Pen and Melenchon could also benefit if young and working class voters cast ballots in high numbers.
Melenchon's progress, and the possibility of a showdown between the founder of the "France Unbowed" party and Le Pen, has alarmed investors. Voter surveys show that, should he reach the second round, Melenchon could win against Fillon or Le Pen.
Le Pen would not win the presidency whoever she faced in the run-off, polls indicate.
Speculation about what would happen in a runoff election is pretty useless when you consider how wrong pollsters have been about support for anti-establishment candidates around the world. But with the way the French press has absolutely demonized Le Pen, it's surprising she is doing as well as she is. 

If it comes down to a match-up between Le Pen and Melenchon, all bets are off. The far left is making a comeback across the continent with the rebirth of the Communist party in Eastern Europe and radical leftists rising in Italy, Greece, and Spain. Many young voters don't know any better, but they realize that the far left is as anti-establishment as candidates like Le Pen. 

Le Pen is also getting a lot of young, working-class voters, so a face-off with Melenchon could very well be about the future of France and what direction its government will take the people.

Rick Moran

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/04/french_presidential_election_could_see_far_left_far_right_matchup_.html

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Sharia Councils and Sexual Abuse in Britain - Khadija Khan




by Khadija Khan

Contrary to what apologists for this travesty say, the plight of Muslim women should be treated as an issue of human rights.

  • As bad as this is, there is an even darker side to the story: Under sharia law, the second husband is under no obligation to give his wife a quick divorce – allowing him to keep her as his virtual sex slave for as long as he wishes.
  • If one asks how all of this jibes with British law, the answer is that it does not.
  • The UK-based NGO, Muslim Women's Network, penned an open letter -- with 100 signatories -- to the British government and Home Affairs Select Committee demanding that the Sharia Council be investigated to determine whether its practices adhere to British law. In response, the Sharia Council declared the letter to be "Islamophobic" and accused the Muslim Women's Network of being an anti-Muslim organization.
  • It is British law, not sharia, law that protects Muslim individuals and couples, as it does any other citizen. Contrary to what apologists for this travesty say, the plight of Muslim women should be treated as an issue of human rights.
The most recent scandal surrounding the sexual exploitation of Muslim women by Islamic religious leaders in the UK is yet further proof of the way in which Britain is turning a blind eye to horrific practices going on right under its nose.

A BBC investigation into "halala" -- a ritual enabling a divorced Muslim woman to remarry her husband by first wedding someone else, consummating the union, and then being divorced by him -- revealed that imams in Britain are not only encouraging this, but profiting financially from it. This depravity has led to many such women being held hostage, literally and figuratively, to men paid to become their second husbands.

This ritual, which is considered a misinterpretation of Islamic sharia law even by extremist Shi'ites and Saudi-style Salafists, is practiced by certain Islamic sects, such as Hanafis, Barelvis and Deobandis. When a husband repeats the Arabic word for divorce -- talaq -- three times to his wife, these sects consider a Muslim marriage null and void. For such a woman to be allowed to return to the husband who banished her, she must first marry someone else -- and have sex with him -- before the second husband divorces her.

These divorce rites, despite the laws of the land, are common in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other Asian countries, where a majority of the people belong to the Hanafi, Barelvi or Deobandi sects. Nevertheless, local seminaries, mosques and online services openly advertise and promote halala with impunity; it is accepted by society and rarely monitored by state authorities.

In Britain, halala has emerged as a booming business, with websites and social media sites offering to provide women with second husbands for exorbitant sums of money. As bad as this is, there is an even darker side to the story: Under sharia law, the second husband is under no obligation to give his wife a quick divorce -- allowing him to keep her as his virtual sex slave for as long as he wishes.

One Muslim woman, who changed her mind about going through with halala after looking into the process, told the BBC that she knew others who did undergo the process, and ended up being sexually abused for months by the second husbands paid to marry them. According to a report in The Guardian, the Sharia Council of Britain says it deals with hundreds of divorce cases annually.

This infamous council is indirectly responsible for what essentially has become a rape pandemic, since it does nothing to stop or refute halala. In fact, it declares that the practice is completely legal under sharia law. The only caveat, the council states, is that the imams presiding over it are not following the proper guidelines, according to which the second marriage and divorce should not be premeditated, but rather happen naturally.

If one asks how all of this jibes with British law, the answer is that it does not. But young Muslims in the UK are discouraged by their communities from marrying through the British system, and are told to have imams perform their weddings and sharia councils register their marriages. Couples who comply end up being at the mercy of Islamic authorities in family matters, including divorce.

Due to its often unethical practices conducted in the name of religious law, the Sharia Council has come under scrutiny a number of times. Last November, for instance, the UK-based NGO, Muslim Women's Network, penned an open letter -- with 100 signatories -- to the British government and Home Affairs Select Committee demanding that the Sharia Council be investigated to determine whether its practices adhere to British law.

In response, the Sharia Council declared the letter to be "Islamophobic" and accused the Muslim Women's Network of being an anti-Muslim organization. In addition, Labour MP Naz Shah jumped to the defense of the Sharia Council, rejecting the idea of an inquiry, on the grounds that shutting down such councils could mean that more women would be stuck in abusive marriages.

While acknowledging that these councils could be used as a tool to deny women their rights, Shah said that they also serve as valuable arbitrators in marital disputes.

Her claims are totally baseless. It is British law, not sharia, law that protects Muslim individuals and couples, as it does any other citizen.


Haitham al-Haddad is a British shari'a council judge, and sits on the board of advisors for the Islamic Sharia Council. Regarding the handling of domestic violence cases, he stated in an interview, "A man should not be questioned why he hit his wife, because this is something between them. Leave them alone. They can sort their matters among themselves." (Image source: Channel 4 News video screenshot)

Had the British government addressed Sharia Council malpractice when it was first revealed, we would not be facing this pandemic today. Contrary to what apologists for this travesty say, the plight of Muslim women should be treated as an issue of human rights.

It is time for the British government to wake up and take a tough stand on such unethical, and probably illegal, system. And the sooner the better, lest the whole sharia council system go "underground" and out of reach to protect thousands of women from abuse.
Khadija Khan is a Pakistan-based journalist and commentator.
Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10191/sharia-councils-sexual-abuse

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