大象传媒

I thought Paxman did a good job over what is a very tricky subject.

At the end of the day it boils down to this and the Archbishop must be intelligent enough to understand: either British law is sovereign in every case of law, or it isn't. That doesn't mean we cannot apply common sense when common sense is required (as already occurs). But there is a big difference between that and the sovereignty of British law.

I caught that. I was really surprised to see Peter is not the stereotype I imagined! and I thought he defended NN's performance very personably!

To reduce this debate about sharia to whether or not the Archbishop meant to include hand chopping, etc. is to obfuscate the actuality of what is happening in the UK at present with regard to various Muslim practices, never mind the theory.

This is where the Archbishop and his apologists failed to grasp, to understand, in any way, how women live in these communities, the level of control the men have over them. They are not allowed to choose or indeed complain about the pronouncements of the tribunals' decisions.

This was tried in Canada and failed. Many females in these communities don't speak English, do not have access to understanding what our laws are. Many have been here for 40 years or more, such are the strengths of the ghetto walls either actual or virtual, and still do not speak English. Many are very young girls brought from Bangladesh or Pakistan and have no English and/or any idea of our laws and the rights of females here. That's why even a small concession to sharia would be dangerous.

It is IMO our moral duty to see FIRST that females are made equal. in these communities. We need to insist that the various Muslim communities put their own house in order with regard to females BEFORE they make any claims about Sharia.

These women are kept in the same position within their culture as the mentally handicapped and children are in ours. This is what the Archbishop and his apologists fail to see. When these women are equal they can then decide for themselves what they want to do about sharia. At present there are too many of them who do not have that right, consequently it's far too dangerous to have any concessions to this confusing law.

We have already made too many concessions to various kinds of so called religious practices here in the UK. In this 21st C so called modern liberal democracy, you can with impunity mutilate the genitals of little black girls, in the name of Islam, slit the throats of recalcitrant Asian teenagers, in the name of Islam, force them to marry, and humiliate Asian women with polygamy, all in the name of Islam. The academic debates are neither here nor there if you are a 4yr old child about to be genitally mutilated or a teenager who is trying to refuse to be married. The Muslim theorists trying to intellectualise the ins and outs of sharia hold no sway with the obvious fact of systematic gender based violence carried out in the name of Islam.

This pervasive, pathological, internal problem with the Islamic attitude to females has to be sorted FIRST before the various Muslim religious cultures can engage in a 21stC dialogue with the rest of humanity.

It is to our great shame IMO that we allow this gender apartheid system to operate freely here in the Uk. It's time we had the courage to put a stop to this and insist on our values being adhered to without apology.