“Last night Khola Hasan, a scholar at the Islamic Sharia Council who has worked there for six years, rejected Ms Zee’s allegations: ‘We are there for a reason, and people come to us,’ she said. ‘We show them sympathy, we certainly don’t condone domestic violence or force women to go back: we are there to get women out of religious marriages.’
She described the allegations of bias towards men as ‘absolute rubbish’, saying: ‘The disputes are between a man and a woman and they are given equal weight. For anyone to claim men have more weight is a lie.’ She said the council may consider legal action.
The council does have a prominent banner on its website saying ‘Stop Domestic Violence’ and leading to a webpage which says: ‘In an emergency always call 999.'”
Machteld Zee promoveerde onlangs in Leiden op het parallelle rechtssysteem van Britse shariaraden. Uiteraard was het beeld over deze shariaraden dat Zee opschreef in haar dissertatie verre van fraai. En uiteraard zijn de moslims in kwestie nu boos en gekwetst en overwegen ze ‘juridische stappen‘. Kennelijk is die Westerse rechtstaat dan wél ineens goed genoeg.
