Cyrus
03-31-2005, 09:46 AM
(Thanks, GBV.)
[ QUOTE ]
JENAN AL-UBAEDEY peers over her half-moon glasses, waving her black-gloved hands between repeated tugs on her long, flowing abaya to pull it closer around her face.
“If you say to a man he cannot use force against a woman, you are asking the impossible,” she explains. “So we say a husband can beat his wife, but he cannot leave a mark. If he does that, he will be punished.”
<font color="white"> . </font>
On the subject of polygamy, the former paediatrician turned politician [she is a newly elected member of Parliament] says: “If you don’t allow your husband to take another wife, he’d have an affair anyway . . . I’d rather know my husband has another wife that I know about.”
<font color="white"> . </font>
More than 50 per cent of female parliamentarians belong to the cleric-backed United Iraqi Alliance, which won the election in a landslide with just over half the seats. It has called the implementation of Sharia “non-negotiable”.
<font color="white"> . </font>
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi women were among the most free in the Middle East, with many rights equal to those of men. Conservative Shias say that the code that ensured those rights is an alien secular one that belongs to the old regime and should be dropped.
<font color="white"> . </font>
Early last year, women’s groups were treated to a taste of [the Shia] vision of women’s rights in the new Iraq, when the Shia-led governing council issued a resolution cancelling the old civil code on family law and referred all cases instead to the religious courts — a de facto imposition of Sharia. That resolution was cancelled by Paul Bremer, the former US administrator.
<font color="white"> . </font>
With such external regulation gone, secular women say that they fear for the future.
[/ QUOTE ]
The Times article (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1548015,00.html)
<font color="white"> . </font>
[ QUOTE ]
JENAN AL-UBAEDEY peers over her half-moon glasses, waving her black-gloved hands between repeated tugs on her long, flowing abaya to pull it closer around her face.
“If you say to a man he cannot use force against a woman, you are asking the impossible,” she explains. “So we say a husband can beat his wife, but he cannot leave a mark. If he does that, he will be punished.”
<font color="white"> . </font>
On the subject of polygamy, the former paediatrician turned politician [she is a newly elected member of Parliament] says: “If you don’t allow your husband to take another wife, he’d have an affair anyway . . . I’d rather know my husband has another wife that I know about.”
<font color="white"> . </font>
More than 50 per cent of female parliamentarians belong to the cleric-backed United Iraqi Alliance, which won the election in a landslide with just over half the seats. It has called the implementation of Sharia “non-negotiable”.
<font color="white"> . </font>
Under Saddam Hussein, Iraqi women were among the most free in the Middle East, with many rights equal to those of men. Conservative Shias say that the code that ensured those rights is an alien secular one that belongs to the old regime and should be dropped.
<font color="white"> . </font>
Early last year, women’s groups were treated to a taste of [the Shia] vision of women’s rights in the new Iraq, when the Shia-led governing council issued a resolution cancelling the old civil code on family law and referred all cases instead to the religious courts — a de facto imposition of Sharia. That resolution was cancelled by Paul Bremer, the former US administrator.
<font color="white"> . </font>
With such external regulation gone, secular women say that they fear for the future.
[/ QUOTE ]
The Times article (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1548015,00.html)
<font color="white"> . </font>