Thursday, December 25, 2008

Sharia Law in Gaza

According to Al-Hayat, the Hamas government in Gaza has passed a new law detailing the punishments for various crimes, based on Islamic Sharia law. Not surprisingly, whoever cooperates with Israel is sentenced to death. I don't support this, but at least this part is somehow understandable. Now here are some of the scarier Iranian/Saudi Arabian/Taliban-style punishments:

  • For drinking, owning or producing wine - 40 whips.
  • For gambling, hurting religious sensibilities, cursing, humiliating people and hurting the public's feelings - you'll get whipped.
  • For stealing - amputation of the right hand.

3 comments:

  1. You must have picked this up from somewhere (nothing arises out of a vacuum), so can you provide (a) link(s) to your source?

    My curiosity stems from the fact that about 'Sharia' enormous confusion/ignorance exists in the non-Muslim world. About the UK, Far Right conservatives constantly tell us that Britain is about to have Sharia imposed on us, yet the evidence for this is totally non-existent. There are of course a few nutbags (Islamists) that call precisely for that but these also claim that the 'black flag of Radical Islam will soon fly over Westminster' (equally risible). We also know that some British Muslim families use Sharia to settle civic disputes internally, usually matters regarding marriage, divorce, alimony, inheritance etc. Matters that ordinarily would be settled by Justices of the Peace. I see no problem with that, as long as it doesn't break UK laws.

    That Hamas is radicalising along Islamic lines is of course an undeniable fact (even though according to Amira Hass they do actually deny it).

    But even in Islamic countries with stricter interpretations of Sharia, religious and common law often exist side by side.

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  2. I heard about it on TV and on an Israeli website. When I was writing this post, I looked for it on Al-Hayat's English website, but apparently only the opinion section appears there.

    Anyway, you can read about it in the Jerusalem Post.

    These are real laws. Whether you call it Sharia Law or not, amputations and whips are bad enough.

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  3. Only J'Post and Ynetnews are carrying this story so far. If true (J'Post does add a cautious 'The Jerusalem Post could not verify the veracity of the Al Hayat report' at the end of their article) then that's more bad news for Gazans.

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