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Times Online - Archbishop of Canterbury calls for Sharia law in the UK

The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for the UK to adopt Sharia for Muslims.

Dr Rowan Williams suggested today that it “seems unavoidable” that elements of Islamic law be accepted into the British legal system.

The head of the Church of England believes that officially sanctioning Sharia will improve community relations and aid integration. He conceded that his view would be controversial but said that similar concessions to other religions were already allowed in Britain.

“Nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that has sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states: the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women,” he told the BBC World at One programme.

“But there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them.”

An alternative with extreme punishments and attitudes to women? That alternative?

Meanwhile, just last night I was all wreathed in smiles to see this story getting published, and the woman responsible for it:

The Times - Religious police in Saudi Arabia arrest mother for sitting with a man

A 37-year-old American businesswoman and married mother of three is seeking justice after she was thrown in jail by Saudi Arabia’s religious police for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks coffee shop in Riyadh.

Yara, who does not want her last name published for fear of retribution, was bruised and crying when she was freed from a day in prison after she was strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions by the Kingdom’s “Mutaween” police.

Her story offers a rare first-hand glimpse of the discrimination faced by women living in Saudi Arabia. In her first interview with the foreign press, Yara told The Times that she would remain in Saudi Arabia to challenge its harsh enforcement of conservative Islam rather than return to America.

“If I want to make a difference I have to stick around. If I leave they win. I can’t just surrender to the terrorist acts of these people,” said Yara, who moved to Jeddah eight years ago with her husband, a prominent businessman.

Her ordeal began with a routine visit to the new Riyadh offices of her finance company, where she is a managing partner.

The electricity temporarily cut out, so Yara and her colleagues — who are all men — went to a nearby Starbucks to use its wireless internet.

She sat in a curtained booth with her business partner in the café’s “family” area, the only seats where men and women are allowed to mix.

For Yara, it was a matter of convenience. But in Saudi Arabia, public contact between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited.

“Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked ‘Why are you here together?’. I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin,” recalled Yara, who wears an abaya and headscarf, like most Saudi women.

The men were from Saudi Arabia’s Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a police force of several thousand men charged with enforcing dress codes, sex segregation and the observance of prayers.

Yara, whose parents are Jordanian and grew up in Salt Lake City, once believed that life in Saudi Arabia was becoming more liberal. But on Monday the religious police took her mobile phone, pushed her into a cab and drove her to Malaz prison in Riyadh. She was interrogated, strip-searched and forced to sign and fingerprint a series of confessions pleading guilty to her “crime”.

“They took me into a filthy bathroom, full of water and dirt. They made me take off my clothes and squat and they threw my clothes in this slush and made me put them back on,” she said. Eventually she was taken before a judge.

“He said ‘You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell’. I told him I was sorry. I was very submissive. I had given up. I felt hopeless,” she said.

Yara’s husband, Hatim, used his political contacts in Jeddah to track her whereabouts. He was able to secure her release.

“I was lucky. I met other women in that prison who don’t have the connections I did,” she said. Her story has received rare coverage in Saudi Arabia, where the press has been sharply critical of the police.

Here’s more on those super Saudi Starbucks’s.

And here, from the fifth, apparently the series of lectures where Dr Druid opened his mouth:

The Times - Does Islam fit with our law?
Is a clash of civilisations looming? It’s now time to find the links rather than the conflicts between English and Islamic law, by Ian Edge and Robin Griffiths-Jones

Update:

And lord, I forgot all about this:

Telegraph - Sex education vs the contraceptive jab, by Bryony Gordon (second item) (first item’s good too, for those of you with an It’s Only Women file)

Last week it was announced that men with more than one wife will be able to claim extra benefits for each spouse, as long as they were married in a country where bigamy is legal (it’s not here, funnily enough).

How odd that while the Government is happy to encourage immigrants and their harems, it feels queasy about young women having babies. Teenage mothers suddenly seem like the least of our troubles, don’t they?

Update II:

And, btw, is he doing double-duty as an Imam too, now?

Update III:

Telegraph Blogs - Is this the end of one law for all? by Patrick Hennessy

However it is also almost breathtaking in its other-worldliness. Did the Archbishop realise how his musings would be greeted by Joe Public? And isn’t his declaration that “an approach to law which simply said - there’s one law for everybody - I think that’s a bit of a danger ” - a precise repudiation of the very foundations of our society, that all are equal under the law?

With understatement bordering on self-parody the BBC reports that “Dr Williams’ comments are likely to fuel the debate over multiculturalism in the UK.” Yes…just a bit.

Telegraph Blogs - Holy Smoke - Rowan Williams supports Sharia, by Damian Thompson

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has told Radio 4 that the adoption of parts of Sharia law in Britain “seems unavoidable” and will help social cohesion. A friend of mine has just sent me a link to the BBC website, and for a second I thought it might be a spoof.

This is the most monumentally stupid thing I have ever heard an Archbishop of Canterbury say, and I’ve heard a few. In fact, it’s more than stupid: it’s disgusting.

The idea that “one law for everyone” is “a bit of a danger”, as Williams argues, goes against every tradition of English law and culture that the Primate of All England is supposed to uphold.

I don’t have time to comment in more detail now: just as well, probably. If he has been reported accurately, then Williams is lending his support to the establishment of a non-Christian theocracy in Britain.

The Church of England must think seriously about his suitability for the ancient office he occupies. And then get rid of him.