Sharia in Iraq?

Articles

Craig Chamberlain

Sharia in Iraq?
Feb 17, 2004

News is that Paul Bremer will veto Iraq adopting Sharia law. But in parts of Iraq it has been adopted under the radar.

For the record I don't support religious law of any kind. A persons relationship with God is private between them and God. No one should be forced to conform to anothers religious point of view or convert to another religion. This does not mean that I am not religious, I go to church every sunday. And not supporting religious law is not the same thing as supporting the atheists at the ACLU. Now that I have that out of the way back to Iraq.

In every muslim nation there are islamists, those that want the sole foundation of the country to be islamic law, everyone must conform to it, or else. Now we have to deal with these people in Iraq.

Religious minorities have been frequent targets in Iraq.Partly because they are not muslims but also because they are more willing to work with the coalition. Four Christian women were murdered as they went to work. Stores selling alcohol are attacked and often the owners beaten or killed. Such stores are usually run by Christians.

Another target and perhaps the favorite of the islamists has been the Sabean Mandeans, followers of John the Baptist. The late Ayatollah Al-Hakim said the followers of the religion are not people of the book and therefore not protected under the law, they can have property taken from them, and can be killed with impunity. Why are we letting things like this go on?

All university presidents in Iraq have been fired and replaced with fundamentalists. Female students are being forced to adopt "islamic dress"

Islamists refuse to work with women such as the former deputy minister of agriculture, women have not been allowed to become judges because of the ayatollahs particuarly al-sistani. Moderates are also targets of islamist ire. They have been removed from their positions as well. So they don't like working with women and moderates. When will they decide they don't like working with Americans? We need to draw the line in the sand somewhere, or Iraq could end up being a mirror image of Iran or Saudi Arabia. We can not tolerate that.

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