Maryam Namazie with news of an event in London today. Any of our London readers who can make it should find this a most interesting contribution to public understanding.
Today
Saturday 30 April 2016 women's rights campaigners will speak at a
"Conference on Sharia Law, Legal Pluralism and Access to Justice" in
central London from 11:30am-5:30pm.
The
conference proceeds correspondence with the Government following a hand
delivered letter to 10 Downing Street on 10 December 2015 signed by nearly 400
individuals and organisations urging David Cameron to hold an inquiry into and
dismantle discriminatory Sharia courts and other religious arbitration forums.
At
the conference, and for the first time in the UK, Humanist Muslim Elham Manea,
a professor at the University of Zurich, will present the finding of her soon
to be published book: "Women And Sharia Law: The Impact Of Legal Pluralism
In The UK," which includes first-hand analysis of the Islamic Sharia
councils and Muslim arbitration tribunals in various British cities, interviews
with experts on extremism, lawyers, politicians and activists in civil society
and women’s rights groups. She will offer a scathing critique of legal
pluralism, with evidence of the courts' connections with political Islam and
the adverse consequences for women in Muslim communities.
Representatives
from women’s and human rights organisations - namely British Muslims for
Secular Democracy, Centre for Secular Space, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain,
Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, Southall Black Sisters and One
Law for All - who have led successful campaigns preventing public authorities
such as the governing body of UK Universities and the Law Society from
incorporating aspects of Sharia laws into their public policies will present
their case against legal pluralism and for women's rights. They will continue
to call on the government to exclude Sharia and all other religious forums,
including the Jewish Beth Din, from presiding over divorce and family matters;
to reinstate legal aid; to stop the repeal of the Human Rights Act and to
re-affirm the principle of the separation of religion and the law. The law is a
key component of securing justice for citizens and one law for all.
Pragna
Patel of SBS says:
Discriminatory
religious codes are very much a part and parcel of the continuum of domestic
and gender based violence and other abuses that BME women face in their daily
lives since they reinforce discrimination, deny exit and prevent women from
accessing justice or from asserting their right to equality…For these reasons
and more, parallel legal systems must not be allowed to exist.
Maryam
Namazie of One Law for All says:
Dismantling
religious courts isn’t a denial of people’s right to religion, it’s a defence
of human rights, and particularly women’s rights vis-a-vis the
religious-Rightwing and their attempts at restricting women’s rights in the
family. By allowing religious courts to operate, we are saying that Muslim or
Jewish women do not have the same rights as others in this country. This is
unacceptable.
Gita
Sahgal of Centre for Secular Space says:
Sharia
Councils drag women into living out a fundamentalist vision of Islam. They do
this by promoting ‘Islamic law’ as higher than the law of the land and by
marketing divorce as a solution for a problem they have created. It is a
disgrace that they are tolerated by the authorities and allowed to become
charities. All parallel legal systems are discriminatory and undermine women’s
rights under the law. It is time that they are dealt with.
Diana
Nammi of IKRWO says:
The
whole premise of religious ‘courts’ is discrimination to women, they represent
a major barrier to women’s rights and not only do they deny women justice, they
also distance women from the mainstream court system and safety measures, such
as civil protection orders, which can have dire consequences. Given that
religious ‘courts’ are community based and often mediate, there are dangerous
implications including locking women within violent marriages and “honour”
based violence. The government must prioritise women’s safety by ensuring
access to mainstream justice and preventing the proliferation and deepening
entrenchment of these parallel legal systems.
Nasreen
Rehman of British Muslims for Secular Democracy says:
Government,
Parliament and the courts have a duty to protect the rights and prevent the
exploitation of the most vulnerable members of society. But all
too often we find they abrogate this responsibility by condoning parallel
systems of justice that promote cruel and discriminatory practices perpetuated
by obscurantists and fanatics in many faith communities – often, falsely
pleading divine sanction as a smokescreen for cruelty. The only way to
ensure equality and justice is to stand together for clarity and ‘one law
for all.’ This does not mean that we do not accept religious, cultural
and ethnic diversity; rather we raise our voices against injustices perpetuated
in the guise of faith and culture.
For
a Press Pass, please contact:
Maryam
Namazie
Spokesperson
One
Law for All
BM
Box 2387, London WC1N 3XX, UK
tel:
+44 (0) 7719166731
email:
onelawforall@gmail.com
Notes:
Day
Conference on Sharia Law, Legal Pluralism and Access to Justice
30
April 2016
11:30am-5:30pm
Central
London, near Kings Cross Station (location disclosed to press who register for
the event)
SCHEDULE
11:00-11:30am Registration
with tea/coffee
11:30-11:40am Opening
with MC Rayhana Sultan, Spokesperson of Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain
11:40-1:10pm Elham Manea,
Academic and Author of "Women And Sharia Law: The Impact Of Legal
Pluralism In The UK"
1:10-2:30pm Lunch (on
your own)
2:30-3:00pm Tea/Coffee
Break
3:00-3:15pm Comedy by
Kate Smurthwaite
3:15-5:15pm Panel
Discussion with Diana Nammi, Director of Iranian Kurdish Women's Rights
Organisation; Gita Sahgal, Director of Centre for Secular Space; Pragna Patel,
Director of Southall Black Sisters; Maryam Namazie, Spokesperson of One Law for
All and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; Nasreen Rehman, Co-Founder of British
Muslims for Secular Democracy and Yasmin Rehman, Women's Rights Campaigner.
Panel Chair: Women's Rights Activist Gina Khan.
5:15-5:30pm Next Steps
and Closing
BIOGRAPHIES
Diana
Nammi is the Director of Iranian Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation, which she
founded in 2002 to provide advice, advocacy, training and counselling to women
and girls from Middle Eastern and North African communities affected by so
called “honour” based violence, including forced marriage and Female Genital
Mutilation as well as domestic violence. In 2012 she was named in a list of 150
women who shake the world by Newsweek and The Daily Beast. In 2014 she received
the Special Jury Women on the Move Award from UNHCR, The Forum and Migrants
Rights Network, she was honoured with the Woman of the Year Award and was
recognised as one of BBC's 100 Women. In 2015 she won the Women of Courage
Award from the Women's Refugee Commission in New York, the XX1 Premis Ones
Mediterrania Award in Spain and the Red Woman of the Year Community and Charity
Award.
Elham
Manea is an Associate Professor specialised on the Middle East, a writer, and a
human rights activist. She is a Fulbright scholar who holds a PhD degree in
political science from the University of Zurich, Master degree in comparative
politics from the American University in Washington D.C, and a Bachelor degree
in political science from Kuwait University. She has published several academic
and non-fiction books including The Arab State and Women’s Rights: The Trap of
Authoritarian Governance. She works at the Political Science Institute at the
University of Zurich and a consultant for Swiss government agencies and
international human rights organizations. Recently, she has been appointed by the
Swiss Federal Council as a Member of the Federal Commission for Women Affairs.
Her concept of humanistic Islam was first published in a series of articles in
Arabic. Her most recent book is: Women And Sharia Law: The Impact Of Legal
Pluralism In The UK.
Gina
Khan was born in Birmingham to Pakistani Muslim parents. Gina is a Human Rights
activist and researcher. Personal experiences prompted Gina to break her
silence in 2005 by speaking out in radio debates and writing to local
Birmingham newspapers following a traumatic divorce and experience of living as
a lone woman and parent in Birmingham. Gina focuses on two main subjects; the
rise of pro-jihad ideologies within Muslim communities and the position and
status of women within those communities. Gina believes these two twin
phenomena to be symptomatic of deeper problems. After speaking out against
Jihadism in Birmingham, Gina and her children were forced to leave her
home after it was attacked.
Gita
Sahgal is a writer, journalist, film-maker and rights activist. She is
currently Founder and Director of Centre for Secular Space. She was formerly
Head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International; she was suspended in 2010
after she was quoted criticizing Amnesty for its high-profile associations with
the Islamist Moazzam Begg, the director of a campaign group called
Cageprisoners. For many years she served on the board of Southall Black
Sisters and was a founder of Women Against Fundamentalism and Awaaz : South
Asia Watch. With Nira Yival Davis, she edited Refusing Holy Orders: Women and
Fundamentalism in Britain ( London, 1992). Among her articles are ‘Legislating
Utopia? Violence Against Women , Identities and Interventions’ in ‘The Situated
Politics of Belonging. During the 1980s, she worked for a Black current affairs
programme called ‘Bandung File’ on Channel 4 TV. She made two films about the
Rushdie affair, ‘Hullaballoo Over Satanic Verses’ and ‘Struggle or Submission’.
She has also made two programmes for Dispatches Channel 4, ‘The Provoked
Wife’ on the case of Kiranjit Ahluwalia and ‘The War Crimes File’ an
investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by members of the Jamaat
I Islami in Bangladesh in 1971.
Kate
Smurthwaite is a stand-up comedian and political activist. She has appeared on
more than 500 TV and radio shows including This Morning, The Big Questions,
Woman’s Hour and The Moral Maze. In 2013 she won a Three Week’s Editor’s Choice
Award for her show at the Edinburgh Festival. Kate is a writer for BBC Three
show The Revolution Will Be Televised and is the Vice Chair of Abortion Rights
UK.
Maryam
Namazie is the Spokesperson for One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in
Britain and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She hosts a weekly television
programme called Bread and Roses broadcast in Iran via New Channel TV. She is
on the International Advisory Board of the Raif Badawi Foundation for Freedom;
Humanist Laureate at the International Academy of Humanism, Central Committee
member of the Worker-communist Party of Iran; National Secular Society Honorary
Associate; Honorary Associate of Rationalist International; Emeritus Member of
the Secular Humanist League of Brazil; a Patron of London Black Atheists and
Pink Triangle Trust and a member of the International Advisory Board of
Feminist Dissent. She was awarded Atheist of the Year by Kazimierz Lyszczynski
(2014); Journalist of the Year at the Dods Women in Public Life Awards (2013);
selected one of the top 45 women of the year by Elle magazine Quebec (2007);
one of 2006's most intriguing people by DNA, awarded the National Secular
Society's Secularist of the Year Award (2005), amongst others.
Nasreen
Rehman is an award winning playwright and screenplay writer. She co-founded
British Muslims for Secular Democracy. Nasreen believes that for far too long
the British public sphere has been ceded to obscurantist voices representing
their own version of Islam. BMSD is an organisation that challenges these
voices and seeks to appropriate this space in order to forward a different and
more enlightened face of Islam – one that is more democratic and equitable. She
represents BMSD at conferences in the U.K. and Europe and engages in media
debates on topics such as Islamophobia and the hijab. She also serves on the
Board of Akademi, a lead organisation for South Asian dance, in Britain; and is
a founder member of the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) a women’s rights movement in
Pakistan. In the past, she has worked as an economist in the private sector and
in development, in the U.K and in Pakistan. As director of the Mahbubul Haq
Human Development Centre, in Islamabad she steered the publication of the
Report on the Crises of Governance in South Asia, and helped to develop the
terms of reference for the Centre’s report on Gender in the region. As trustee
of the Runnymede Trust, she served on two national commissions on anti-Semitism
and Islamophobia, respectively.
Pragna
Patel is Founder and Director of the Southall Black Sisters and Women Against
Fundamentalism. SBS is, a multi-award-winning women’s organisation founded in
1979 to address the needs of black and minority women experiencing gender
violence. It successfully campaigned for the release of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, a
landmark case in which an Asian woman was convicted of the murder of her
violent husband. The case reformed homicide law, creating greater awareness
within and outside minority communities. Pragna is also a co-founder of Women
Against Fundamentalism. She has also written extensively on race, gender and
religion, including ‘Citizenship: Whose Rights?’, ‘Faith in the State? Asian
Women’s Struggles for Human Rights in the UK’, and ‘Shrinking Secular Spaces:
Asian Women at the Intersect of Race, Religion and Gender’. She was listed in
The Guardian’s Top 100 women: activists and campaigners.
Rayhana
Sultan is Spokesperson of Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and a
Bangladeshi-born human rights activist living in the UK. She launched CEMB's
#ExMuslimBecause campaign that trended on social media with over 100,000 Tweets
across 70 countries worldwide.
Yasmin
Rehman is a freelance consultant and doctoral candidate at the School of
Oriental and African Studies. Her area of research is polygamy and the law. She
has worked for more than 20 years predominantly on violence against women,
race, faith and gender, and human rights. Yasmin has worked for Local
Government, the Metropolitan Police Service as Director of Partnerships and
Diversity (2004-08) during which time she also held the Deputy national lead
for forced marriage and honour based violence. Yasmin has most recently been
commissioned as founding CEO of a race equality charity in East London,
followed by Transforming Rehabilitation bid and now reviewing police responses
to domestic abuse for national charities. Yasmin is currently member of the
Board of EVAW (End Violence Against Women Coalition), an Independent Adviser
for City of London Police and a member of the Centre for Secular Space.
No comments