US may block Islamic law in Iraq:Bremer opposes sharia as backbone of charter

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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US may block Islamic law in Iraq
Bremer opposes sharia as backbone of charter
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/02/17/us_may_block_islamic_law_in_iraq/

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s US administrator suggested yesterday that he would block any move by Iraqi leaders to make Islamic law the backbone of an interim constitution. And in new violence, roadside bombs killed three more American soldiers.

The US military also said yesterday that gunmen killed an American Baptist minister from Rhode Island, and wounded two other New England pastors and one from New York in a weekend ambush south of the capital.

A grenade exploded yesterday in an elementary school playground in Baghdad, killing a child and wounding four others. The children apparently triggered the explosive while playing, Iraqi police said.

During a visit to a women’s center in Karbala, administrator L. Paul Bremer III said the current draft of the interim constitution, due to take effect at the end of this month, would make Islam the state religion and “a source of inspiration for the law,” but not the main source for that law.

However, Mohsen Abdel-Hamid, the current president of the Iraqi Governing Council and a Sunni Muslim hard-liner, has proposed making Islamic law the “principal basis” of legislation.

Iraqi women’s groups fear that could cost them the rights they hold under Iraq’s longtime secular system, especially in such areas as divorce, child support, and inheritance.

Bremer was asked what would happen if Iraqi leaders wrote into the interim charter that Islamic sharia law is the principal basis of legislation. “Our position is clear,” Bremer said. “It can’t be law until I sign it.”

Bremer must sign all measures passed by the 25-member council before they can become law. But Iraq’s powerful Shi’ite clergy members want the interim constitution to be approved by an elected legislature. Under US plans, a permanent constitution would not be drawn up and voted on by the Iraqi people until 2005.

Comment:

Under Saddam the muslims of Iraq had no rights to elect their leaders or system, so everyone was hoping that when Saddam was removed the muslims would be free to choose their leaders and the system of the creator. But, well the Americans have news for the muslims Iraq will be ruled according to a system which they approve, so much for slogans of freedom and democracy.

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With a deeply polarized shia and sunni population, what version of Islamic law can they possibly adopt anyway?

Make no mistake. I am fully in favor of muslim countries adopting sharia as the prime source of Islamic law. However, they need to agree on what is sharia and what are the sources of sharia. If our own Religion Forum is any example, our shia and sunni brothers hardly agree on anything of consequence anyway. Asking them to come together to and agree on a sharia-based constitution is perhaps asking for the impossible.

Although, if the two sides are able to trust each other, they may come to a amicable resolution, but my understanding of Iraq is that shias deeply mistrust sunnis, and the feeling is receiprocated in its entirity. What is your feeling?

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Who are the American's to choose what form of government Iraq should have? Let their be free and fair elections as soon as possible - no nominated or indirectly elected caucuses or authorities - but actual free elections. Then let that elected body of Iraqi's draw up the constitution, and for the wider electorate to then vote for or against it.

Be they Shia or Sunni Muslim or Arab or Kurd, all Iraqi's agree on one thing - Iraq for the Iraqi's.

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Iraq for Iraqis is fine.... however they should be able to defend their country against those who want to occupy it. They failed and as a reult they have a Paul Bremmer signing their laws. Hopefully the occupying army will leave ASAP to leave Iraqis to their own devices.

Anyway, moving past that, when free and fair elections are held and a true Iraqi constitutional and legislative assembly is elected (I hope its a question of "when" and not "if"), what sort of constitution will they agree on? I think it will be very interesting to observe in months to come.

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Democracy Algeria style :D

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Sharia? Why would anyone willingly want sharia?

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Imdad Ali: *
Sharia? Why would anyone willingly want sharia?
[/QUOTE]

How about let the majority decide. Now how would we know what the majority wants?... elections, naaaaaaa that is oxymoron so must be Sistani.

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The concept of democracy for people who are used to living under dictatorships is obviously an unknown concept. Elections do not equal democracy. There is a lot more to democracy than holding elections in a country that has no security, stability or institutions in place to handle it. And to say that Shias, Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds will be able to work out their differences, particularly if some ayatollahs impose their brand of the inherently undemocractic shariah in this political vaccum is unrealistic.

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Exactly right Seminole. Many Iraqi women are said to fear Islamic rule would take away their right, comments about that?

Many Iraqi women fear Islamic law would take away rights they now enjoy, and as CBS News Correspondent Thalia Assuras reports, that fear is grounded in experience.

In the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Najaf, Nidal Jehrayoh dresses in the traditional head-to-toe abaya, a long shroud worn by women.

But indoors, she sheds the covering and gets to work, as 16 years ago she became the area’s first female attorney.

“It was difficult back then,” she says. “Judges tried to provoke me into crying.”

Today she can claim another milestone and faces similar fury in pious, arch-conservative Najaf. She has been appointed its first female judge, but with critics calling it an affront to Islam, her appointment has been blocked.

“They object because I’m a woman,” she says simply, then with a mischievous smile, “Doesn’t a man have emotions? I know a male judge who is affected by beautiful ladies.”

The opposition to Jehrayoh’s appointment from clerics, other lawyers and even women scuttled her advance to the bench. She may have hit the glass ceiling, an indication of the difficulty women will face in achieving a significant political voice in Iraq.

The more secular Baghdad already boasts female judges, and now with Saddam Hussein gone, women in government, among them Dr. Raja Habib Khuzai.

“It will be a bit bitter, I think, for the men to be taken over by the women you know, but it will settle,” Khuzai says.

Khuzai is one of three women on Iraq’s governing council, making her a feminist pioneer in a country where women make up 60 percent of the population.

“They are looking to me as if I am the symbol of the Iraqi women. They can follow in my steps,” she says.

Khuzai wants to build a political stepladder for women in a new Iraqi constitution, including language that would ensure female election candidates and nominees to government ministries and agencies.

“Iraq’s educated women are more than qualified,” she says, and counts among them the nemesis of Najaf’s religious conservatives: Nidal Jehrayoh.

“I don’t think it’s a religious problem. It’s sort of tradition, or some other lawyers jealous from her,” says Khzai.

Despite the hurdles, these two trailblazers say they have faith that women will achieve their rightful place in a new Iraq.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/16/eveningnews/main600524.shtml

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Abdali: *

How about let the majority decide. Now how would we know what the majority wants?... elections, naaaaaaa that is oxymoron so must be Sistani.
[/QUOTE]

Exactly. But now American's are shamelessly saying that "Elections do not equal democracy", obviously meaning that what American's want equals democracy? Hence the fear they have of Ayatollah Sistani, the majority Shia Muslims and their resultant power? I am sure just like period leading upto the attack on Afghanistan they will use the "plight of women" etc for their propoganda purposes, then turn round afterwards and admit (as they have) that they did not go to war for the women and the people.

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Re: US may block Islamic law in Iraq:Bremer opposes sharia as backbone of charter

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by showkot: *
US may block Islamic law in Iraq
Bremer opposes sharia as backbone of charter

Bremer was asked what would happen if Iraqi leaders wrote into the interim charter that Islamic sharia law is the principal basis of legislation. "Our position is clear," Bremer said.** "It can't be law until I sign it."**

[/QUOTE]

what a joke US invaders claimed they where getting rid of one cruel dictator Saddam and lettng people have a choice, now its clear the butcher of baghdad is replaced by another dictator Bremner who wears an armani suit and tells the people its my way or the highway!

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Democracy is evidently a hard concept to grasp for those who are not used to living in democratic countries. Here it is again, in a nutshell.

1 There is more to democracy than elections. #2 If 60% of the population votes to have a religous government that represents only their 60% of the population, it is not democracy for the remaining 40%.

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Talk about patronizing people or what!

Who do you think you are telling people that democracy is a hard concept to grasp! Democrohypocrisy is a bankrupt system which people do not want on a wholescale level, they have seen the corruption and lies day in day out this is something you have failed to grasp!

You got a president right now who got less votes than Al gore from this system, now how hard is that for you to comprehend!

Puting gun to iraqi peoples head and telling them you cant do this and you cant do that is something they used to from the old butcher of baghdad and now something they getting from the new improved Butcher from washington!

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Patronizing? You mean like 98% of your posts? It would only make sense that those who are used to living under dictatorships would have trouble understanding democracy as these posts indicate. Allowing elections in a political vaccum where there has not been a free election in history is not democracy. And allowing a religous group to dictate religous law in a country that is 40% non-Shia is not democracy. Putting a gun to people's head to impose elections (under the guise of fair and free elections) before the country is ready to handle democracy is not a long term solution for the security and stability of the Iraqi people.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Seminole: *
And allowing a religous group to dictate religous law in a country that is 40% non-Shia is not democracy. Putting a gun to people's head to impose elections (under the guise of fair and free elections) before the country is ready to handle democracy is not a long term solution for the security and stability of the Iraqi people.
[/QUOTE]

You really must be really desperate to proove a point 40 % non shia is nice way of twisting the fact that majority of the country is muslim regardless if they shia, or sunni and they demand islamic law.

**NOTE - Leave the moderation of the forum to the mods, thank you very much.**

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ak47, where did you pull that stat? Regardless of what the majority says, if it oppresses people it wont be allowed, the U.S. just got done with removing an oppressive system and isn't going to replace it with another.

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The people whining about Bremer's decision on Islamic law would be the loudest in opposing the imposition of "Christian law" in the US or some other country. Requiring women to wear veils and/or burkas is no more free and democratic than it would be for a country to ban Muslim women from wearing same in a different country.

IMO, the issue is not Islamic law vs. Christian law vs. Jewish law, etc. It is one of religious law (regardless of which religion) vs. secular law. I know of no great shining example of democracy and freedom arising from a country imposing religious law. Generally speaking, religious law is the antithesis of freedom and democracy.

Some people who don't understand democracy think that it is promoting democracy to allow a majority of people (however slim the majority) to vote against establishment of a democratic system. As Seminole says, democracy is more than merely the majority vote to do something.

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myvoice... point is Bremmer is not going to stay in Iraq forever. Sooner or later, Iraqis have to grapple with this question themselves as to what kind of law they want for their country. Pontification aside, if US does not plan to stay in Iraq indefinitely, why is it creating additional roadblocks against the will of the people?

At this point, the US should be facilitating the dialogue between different groups of Iraqi people and try to bring them to a common ground, and not to force-feed its own ideals on something which they can later kick out anyway. This will help US to get out of Iraq as soon as possible (assuming that is what US wants too).

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When great Sistani speaks you better listen… welcome to reality..

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040217/1/3i3dt.html

Shiites fume over Bremer veto threat as violence continues in Iraq

Leaders in Iraq’s Shiite community warned top US civilian administrator Paul Bremer against the risk of a crisis should he intervene in the drafting of the country’s interim constitution.

On the ground, three Iraqi civilians, including a 10-year-old girl, were killed when a stray US mortar round slammed into the backyard of a home near the main US base in Tikrit, a US soldier said.

US commanders described the firings as a “harassment and interdiction” mission aimed at preventing anti-coalition insurgents from setting up positions in meadows across the Tigris river to attack the base – one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces.

** Shiite leaders reacted angrily to Bremer’s threat to use his veto if the US-appointed interim Governing Council proposes a basic law that challenges the spirit of Western-style democracy.

“Islam is the source of law, and so it should be in a Muslim majority country,” said Abdel Mahdi al-Karabali, who represents Shiite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy Shiite city of Karbala, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad.

“The Iraqi people only can veto the legislation and nobody has the right to interfere in our constitution,” he told AFP Tuesday. **

The Najaf head of the main Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), also warned against US intervention in the drafting of the country’s legal code.

“I think that if one seeks to impose a solution other than what the Iraqi population wants, it would spark a crisis and none of the parties want this to happen,” Sheikh Sadreddin al-Kubbanji said.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by myvoice: *
I know of no great shining example of democracy and freedom arising from a country imposing religious law. Generally speaking, religious law is the antithesis of freedom and democracy.

[/QUOTE]

Again westerners with a tunnel vision have no clue and show there ignorance of islam.

firstly they lump islam with other spirtitual beliefs such as xstianity, bhuddism, zoastrians etc. These beliefs do not have systems of life where as islam does.

Secondly they have no clue of the systems such as the judicial, the economic, the foriegn policy, the military policy or even the basic social policy of islam.

To say that the entire mass of muslims are so ignorant and they don't really klnow what is democracy is just arrogant and patronizing. They have played the westerners game of democracy many times over from algeria to turkeyand found to there cost that when you vote for islam and you manage to score a goal you get the red card and get banned!

democracy is a failure, it has failed to come up with the goods in the muslim lands that is why islam has yet again become the alternative system that the people want!

Even Dictator bremner has to impose his will and say non to islamic laws which is the will of the people!