As the number of Sharia courts operating behind closed doors – and beyond the reach of British law – continues to grow apace, a new documentary has exposed what really happens during the shadowy proceedings.
Channel 4 documentary was granted access to Birmingham Central Mosque, so it is likely that those in charge sought to convey the best possible image, knowing that the footage and commentary would be broadcast. Nonetheless, the broadcast left viewers dumbfounded.
According to the Daily Mail, there are believed to be about 85 Sharia courts in the UK; the Express puts the number at 100. These courts are supposed to resolve family, marriage and financial disputes for Muslims; they are predictably is misogynistic, and consequently damaging to women, and by proxy to children.
Sharia-compliant women are subjugated and intimidated. While Muslim men need simply to tell their wives “I divorce you” three times to be free of her, the process for wives is quite different. Viewers watched Fatima go through the emotional trauma of pleading her case before the three Sharia court judges. The 33-year-old mother of four children had to plead her case and obtain “permission to divorce the drug dealer husband she says has emotionally abused her throughout their 14 year marriage.”
This troubling documentary depicts a bed of roses compared to other judgments that are being handed down by Britain’s Sharia courts. A couple of examples: a Sharia court handed down a sentence approving of honor killing, and another ordered a traumatized woman to return to her abusive rapist husband.
The silence from feminists is deafening.
The moment a Muslim mother is forced to ask the permission of Islamic clerics in a BRITISH Sharia court to divorce her drug dealer husband,” by Natalie Corner, Daily Mail, March 2, 2017:
As the number of Sharia courts operating behind closed doors – and beyond the reach of British law – continues to grow apace, a new documentary has exposed what really happens during the shadowy proceedings.
There are believed to be 85 Sharia courts in the UK, and last night Channel 4’s Extremely British Muslims aired footage captured inside Birmingham’s Central Mosque as a council dispensed its strict religious form of justice.
Viewers witnessed the struggle of mother-of-four Fatima, 33, as she sought permission to divorce the drug dealer husband she says has emotionally abused her throughout their 14 year marriage.
The Islamic court, which seeks to provide Muslims with resolutions to financial, familial and marital disputes according to the principles of their faith, granted Fatima’s request.
But that she was forced to plead her case at all is in stark contrast to the divorce process for Muslim men, who need only tell their spouse ‘I divorce you’ three times in order to free themselves of a marriage.
Under Islamic law, marriage is a legal bond and social contract between a man and a woman, but the marriages are not binding under UK law.
On Extremely British Muslims, Fatima had to explain exactly why she no longer wants to be with her other half to the three judges, one of whom was the only female Sharia Court judge in the country, Dr Amra Bone.
Fatima wished to be granted a divorce, and claimed she has been a victim of emotional abuse.
‘I’ve been on my own with the children, [with] no support from him and there was emotional abuse,’ she said.
She refused to take him back even after Dr Bone said that her husband was willing to change…..
‘There’s no love or trust and I fear him. I am 100 percent [convinced], there is no looking back’ she explained.
While she waited for an answer she explained that after a couple of months of marriage her husband ‘started to show his true colours’ and things soon spiralled ‘out of control’.
Fatima had gone against her parents’ wishes when she first married him and admitted she regrets rushing into the marriage.
The presiding judge Dr Amra Bone informed Fatima that her marriage has been dissolved and reflected on Fatima’s case.
‘This is a marriage of choice [as opposed to an arranged marriage]. The wife is discovering afterwards, he has been on drugs.
‘We think it’s very important for the family to play a role in finding out what the boy is like before anything happens, and in cases where they’ve already fallen in love it is in fact too late.’
Source: UK: Sharia courts operating beyond reach of British law and oppressing women