هنئونا انتصار جديد على قوى الظلام في ولاياتنا ONTARIO !!!!

Quote: Hi Tragi, Thanks again for your time yesterday. It was so helpful to talk to you. All best, Sharon The Hamilton Spectator Pubdate:September 13, 2005 Page: A02 Section:Local Edition:MET Length:850 Shariah law ruling divides church, state Ontario's ban on faith-based arbitration of family law cases praised, panned by women's rights groups, religious leaders Byline/Source: Sharon Boase The Hamilton Spectator As women's groups bask in the glow of their hard-won victory over the use of Islamic law in Ontario, religious leaders and multiculturalism advocates wonder if the province hasn't wound up a loser. Rabbi Morton Green, who has helped resolve divorces and business disputes using Jewish law since 1958, believes religious arbitration provides an affordable and more humane approach to conflict resolution than the courts. Premier Dalton McGuinty's announcement Sunday that all religious-based arbitration of family law cases must stop is "too radical and will do more harm than good," says Green. Spending anywhere from six months to a year with divorcing couples, Green will interview both parties separately, all the while counselling them in the interests of healing anger and maintaining civility. "My method is in-depth and you get a real feel for both people," says Green, of Hamilton's Adas Israel Synagogue. "I want to find a way of restoring the social order and I think this is the highest level of justice." Just last week, Green got a call from a man who admitted that if he and his wife had listened to Green, they could have saved $325,000 in legal costs. McGuinty's decision to close the door on all forms of religious arbitration was the right thing to do, says Alia Hogben. She is the executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, one of about 100 groups in a Toronto-based coalition formed two years ago to fight the introduction of shariah law. Their next step is to advise the province on redrafting arbitration and family law legislation to ensure shariah will never be used in Ontario. "This issue has nothing to do with multiculturalism or with religious freedom," Hogben says. "We have never said that people should not have the freedom to get advice from their religious leader. But we are saying the law of the land shouldn't then come and sanction it." Members of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court in Canada say religious arbitration leads to divisiveness, ghettoization of members of religious communities and human rights abuses, particularly against women. There are five schools of shariah law and each interprets Islamic jurisprudence differently. There are also dramatic variations from country to country. Typically, shariah favours fathers over mothers in custody cases and men over women in inheritance cases and doesn't require alimony to be paid in divorce cases. "We never said Islam is bad or unfair, but we think that human nature is always looking for what is good for oneself," says Tragi Mustafa, a Hamilton Muslim involved in outreach and advocacy work with Muslim women. "This is what the men do using our shariah law." Mustafa knows of two cases in the Hamilton Muslim community where she says a woman's rights were bulldozed by her husband. One involved a Jordanian woman whose husband sent her back home to Jordan "because she wasn't a good listener." He kept the children and arranged for another wife. The other case involved a couple originally from the Middle East who built up a business over a decade. Mustafa says the husband sold the business without his wife's knowledge, hid the assets, declared bankruptcy and then left her. She is on welfare raising their children. "She worked day and night building the business with him. Under Canadian law, she is supposed to be entitled to half" says Mustafa. "If we had shariah law, he could do it openly, keep his business and she could never say a single word." Dr. Karen Bird, a political scientist at McMaster University who specializes in multiculturalism at home and abroad, says she has noticed a creeping intolerance of Muslim cultures. Multiculturalism policies were drafted with a less diverse society in mind, she notes. "I worry (this decision) may be a symptom of intolerance toward Muslims," Bird says. Growing Muslim communities have caused some European countries to ratchet back on multiculturalism policies, she says. And Western societies are quick to knock the treatment of women in non-Western societies and cultures, while failing to examine the treatment of women around them. "I think there will be more and more issues like this," Bird says. "We don't have as clear a line between church and state in Canada, and that is one of our strengths. "As diversity changes, the old policies aren't appropriate or adequate. "There are real puzzles that as a society we have to sort out." [email protected] 905-526-2452 STORYID=200509131223127