The taliban returns to fill the void...

[Frances Morey]

This story makes our problems pale by comparison. Then again, I heard recently that those of us who can add, subtract, multiply and divide are among the top 5% of the world's population in educational terms. 
This news spotting came to me courtesy of Beverly Veltman.
Frances




> Despite being in the Washington Post, this story is just not getting 
> > picked up: 
> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21321-2004Jan15.html 
> > 
> > This is the liberty we bring in our wake. 
> > 
> > Women in Iraq Decry Decision To Curb Rights 
> > Council Backs Islamic Law on Families 
> > 
> > By Pamela Constable 
> > Washington Post Foreign Service 
> > Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A12 
> > 
> > BAGHDAD, Jan. 15 -- For the past four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed 
> > some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a 
> > civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary 
> > divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance 
> > disputes. 
> > 
> > Saddam Hussein's dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the 
> > U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering 
> > in late December that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues 
> > placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as 
> > sharia. 
> > 
> > This week, outraged Iraqi women -- from judges to cabinet ministers -- 
> > denounced the decision in street protests and at conferences, saying it 
> > would set back their legal status by centuries and could unleash 
> > emotional clashes among various Islamic strains that have differing 
> > rules for marriage, divorce and other family issues. 
> > 
> > "This will send us home and shut the door, just like what happened to 
> > women in Afghanistan," said Amira Hassan Abdullah, a Kurdish lawyer who 
> > spoke at a protest meeting Thursday. Some Islamic laws, she noted, allow 
> > men to divorce their wives on the spot. 
> > 
> > "The old law wasn't perfect, but this one would make Iraq a jungle," she 
> > said. "Iraqi women will accept it over their dead bodies." 
> > 
> > The order, narrowly approved by the 25-member council in a closed-door 
> > session Dec. 29, was reportedly sponsored by conservative Shiite 
> > members. The order is now being opposed by several liberal members as 
> > well as by senior women in the Iraqi government. 
> > 
> > The council's decisions must be approved by L. Paul Bremer, the chief 
> > U.S. administrator in Iraq, and aides said unofficially that his 
> > imprimatur for this change was unlikely. But experts here said that once 
> > U.S. officials turn over political power to Iraqis at the end of June, 
> > conservative forces could press ahead with their agenda to make sharia 
> > the supreme law. Spokesmen for Bremer did not respond to requests for 
> > comment Thursday. 
> > 
> > "It was the secret way this was done that is such a shock," said Nasreen 
> > Barawi, a woman who is Iraq's minister for social welfare and public 
> > service. "Iraq is a multiethnic society with many different religious 
> > schools. Such a sweeping decision should be made over time, with an 
> > opportunity for public dialogue." There is no immediate threat of the 
> > decision becoming law, Barawi said, "but after June 30, who knows what 
> > can happen?" 
> > 
> > In interviews at several meetings and protests, women noted that even 
> > during the politically repressive Hussein era, women had been allowed to 
> > assume a far more modern role than in many other Muslim countries and 
> > had been shielded from some of the more egregiously unfair 
> > interpretations of Islam advocated by conservative, male-run Muslim 
> > groups. 
> > 
> > Once Hussein was toppled, several women noted wryly, they hoped the new 
> > authorities would further liberalize family law. Instead, in the process 
> > of wiping old laws off the books, they said, Islamic conservatives on 
> > the Governing Council are trying to impose retrograde views of women on 
> > a chaotic postwar society. 
> > 
> > Although it remained unclear which members of the council had promoted 
> > the shift of family issues from civil to religious jurisprudence, the 
> > decision was made and formalized while Abdul Aziz Hakim, a Shiite Muslim 
> > who heads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was 
> > chairing the council under a rotating leadership system. 
> > 
> > This week, several moderate council members spoke strongly against the 
> > decision in public forums, calling it a threat to both civilized 
> > progress and national unity. Nasir Chaderchi, a lawyer and council 
> > member who heads the National Democratic Party, criticized the council's 
> > action at a professional women's meeting Thursday. "We don't want to be 
> > isolated from modern developments," Chaderchi told the gathering of the 
> > Iraqi Independent Women's Group. "What hurts most is that the law of the 
> > tyrant Saddam was more modern than this new law." He said he hoped women 
> > would continue to protest until the order was reversed. 
> > 
> > The council's new policy decree was brief and vague, mentioning neither 
> > particular family issues nor individual branches of Islamic law that 
> > would replace current civil law. But lawyers and other experts from 
> > Iraqi women's groups said the ambiguity of the decision was especially 
> > worrisome, since rival Islamic sects in Iraq espouse different policies 
> > for women's legal and marital rights. 
> > 
> > Some critics said the proposed law might exacerbate tensions between 
> > Sunni and Shiite Muslims, already divided over other power-sharing 
> > issues in postwar Iraq, and could even destroy families that have 
> > intermarried between the two strains of Islam. Under Hussein, they said, 
> > the universal application of civil family law prevented such issues from 
> > sparking sectarian strife. 
> > 
> > Zakia Ismael Hakki, a female retired judge and outspoken opponent of the 
> > new order, said Thursday that since 1959, civil family law had been 
> > developed and amended under a series of secular governments to give 
> > women a "half-share in society" and an opportunity to advance as 
> > individuals, no matter what their religion. 
> > 
> > "This new law will send Iraqi families back to the Middle Ages," Hakki 
> > said. "It will allow men to have four or five or six wives. It will take 
> > away children from their mothers. It will allow anyone who calls himself 
> > a cleric to open an Islamic court in his house and decide about who can 
> > marry and divorce and have rights. We have to stop it." 
> > 
> > C 2004 The Washington Post Company 
> > 

 
 


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