tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/sharia-law-69301/articlesSharia law – The Conversation2023-10-15T04:45:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2147362023-10-15T04:45:46Z2023-10-15T04:45:46ZBetween state and mosque: new book explores the turbulent history of Islamic politics in Mozambique<p><em><a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/dp/2014/afr1404.pdf">Mozambique</a> is a multi-religious southern African nation with excellent relations between faiths. Relations between Muslims and the state have been good too. But the situation became more complicated <a href="https://theconversation.com/mozambiques-own-version-of-boko-haram-is-tightening-its-deadly-grip-98087">in 2017</a> when a bloody jihadist insurgency broke out in the north. Eric Morier-Genoud has published extensively on politics and religion in Mozambique. His latest book, <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/towards-jihad/">Towards Jihad? Muslims and Politics in Postcolonial Mozambique</a>, looks at the historical relationship between Islam and politics in the country. He fielded some questions from The Conversation Africa.</em></p>
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<h2>When was Islam introduced to Mozambique?</h2>
<p>Islam has a very old presence in Mozambique. It is estimated to have arrived within the first century of the start of the faith, with Arab, Ottoman and Persian traders. It settled at once during and after the 8th century among new Swahili networks, cultures and societies that developed on the east African coast between Somalia and what is today Mozambique. </p>
<p>Expansion of the Islamic faith inland was slow and only made significant progress in the 19th and 20th centuries. This was the time when European colonial powers occupied Africa, building new infrastructure such as roads and railways that helped the spread of different faiths. </p>
<p>At <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mozambique/Mozambique-under-the-New-State-regime">independence in 1975</a>, Muslims represented 15% of the population of Mozambique. The latest census indicates it stood at 19% <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mozambique/Religion">in 2017</a>. Today Muslims live mostly on the coast and in the north of the country. A majority of the population of Niassa and Cabo Delgado provinces are Muslim, as are 40% of the population of Nampula province.</p>
<h2>What’s been the political experience of Muslims since independence?</h2>
<p>A majority of Muslims, like all other religious people in the country, were in favour of independence. But when Frelimo, the liberation movement, came to power at independence in 1975, its policy was socialist-oriented and the government turned against religion. Frelimo saw faith as a superstition and an impediment to its programme. It closed churches near state and educational institutions, restricted religious practice, and even ran atheist campaigns between 1978 and 1980. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, the Frelimo party-state shifted towards tolerance, meaning a policy of minor religious restrictions and a strict separation between state and church/mosque. Frelimo party members were prohibited from being members of a religious institution. Faith institutions were ordered to focus on religion only. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, after the end of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-the-Cold-War-end">Cold War</a> and the official abandonment of socialism, the Frelimo government moved towards a freer religious regime. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the post-socialist <a href="https://www.portaldogoverno.gov.mz/por/Governo/Legislacao/Constituicao-da-Republica-de-Mocambique">1990 constitution</a> did not allow political parties based on regionalism, ethnicity or religion. So there’s a limit to what Muslims can do politically for their faith.</p>
<p>A law to recognise Muslim religious holidays in the 1990s was blocked by the Supreme Court in the name of secularism. Muslims argued this was unfair since Christmas is an official holiday, although called <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?country=126">“family day”</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly in the 2000s Muslim politicians (organised in a formal cross-party lobby in parliament) struggled to influence a new law to define the family, inheritance rights and women’s rights. </p>
<p>Consequently, many Islamic organisations and politicians have moved away from politics in the last two decades, to focus on education, social works and proselytism.</p>
<h2>What led to the current insurgency?</h2>
<p>There is much debate about the causes of the jihadi insurgency in northern Mozambique. <a href="https://www.iese.ac.mz/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/cadernos_17.pdf">Researchers</a> have identified poverty, youth marginalisation, ethnicity and religion as push factors. </p>
<p>The pull factor is a jihadi project of more justice and equality through sharia law and a caliphate. It offers an alternative plan for state and society, and a path to it through violence. The insurgency developed regionally (in connection with Tanzanian jihadis) and the insurgents connected formally to the Islamic State, the <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/08/11/how-al-qaeda-and-islamic-state-are-digging-into-africa">international terrorist group</a>, in early 2018. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mozambican-terror-group-is-strikingly-similar-to-nigerias-deadly-boko-haram-201039">Mozambican terror group is strikingly similar to Nigeria's deadly Boko Haram</a>
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<p>My book shows that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Mozambique do not want full sharia law and a caliphate. Nor do they accept the violence used to achieve these objectives. </p>
<p>The insurgents have nevertheless settled militarily in the extreme north, where they have established bases in deep forests and rely on Islamic State for some technical support and public relations.</p>
<h2>What support, if any, do the insurgents enjoy in Mozambique?</h2>
<p>Insurgents enjoy hardly any support nationally. Locally, they draw some support from networks they established, from long-held local grievances, and from mistakes the state, the army and the police have made since the start of the conflict. </p>
<p>Other dynamics have come into play, including displacement, violence, uncertainty and fear. Today, the “Al-Shabaab” insurgents (as they are known in Mozambique) operate in a territory of about 30,000 square kilometres which represents less than half of the province of Cabo Delgado (one of the 11 provinces of Mozambique). </p>
<p>This is a very limited territory, but one where crucial economic projects are located. Among others, private investment is unfolding for the production of onshore and offshore LNG gas, and companies have developed graphite projects that have turned Mozambique into the second largest world producer of this mineral. </p>
<p>The insurgents have hardly expanded since they began their armed insurrection in October 2017. In 2021 they carried out attacks in Niassa and Nampula, but they withdrew rapidly. It is not clear whether they chose not to expand, or whether the government and its <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/06/regional-security-support-vital-first-step-peace-mozambique">international allies</a> have been effective in containing them. Still, the armed conflict continues today, six years on.</p>
<h2>How can the peace be restored?</h2>
<p>This is a topic of debate. The government has been active mostly militarily, with an international intervention since 2021. It wants to root out those it calls international “terrorists”. </p>
<p>Many commentators and partners of Mozambique believe that to resolve the conflict, one also needs to address the root causes: poverty, youth marginalisation and ethnicity. Donors and the Mozambican government have started social and economic programmes focusing on youth and on economic development in the north of Mozambique. Even private companies such as TotalEnergie want to engage in such programmes.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/catalogue-of-failures-behind-growing-humanitarian-crisis-in-northern-mozambique-149343">Catalogue of failures behind growing humanitarian crisis in northern Mozambique</a>
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<p>An element which has not been touched upon yet relates to the pull factors. There are several possibilities. One would be for the state and civil society to develop a reflection and consultation about the future of the country and about inclusion and representation. It could look at social, economic, political, historical, cultural, and religious elements, aiming to establish a medium-term “agenda for the nation”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Morier-Genoud does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The overwhelming majority of Muslims in Mozambique reject the violence of the insurgents and their quest for a caliphate.Eric Morier-Genoud, Reader in African history, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2018672023-08-04T01:52:43Z2023-08-04T01:52:43ZAustralia will soon have its first Islamic bank. What does this mean, and what are the challenges?<p>Islamic banks have become an integral part of the financial system in many Muslim-majority countries, as well as in nations with sizeable Muslim minorities such as the United Kingdom, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Thailand.</p>
<p>Australia is poised to join them. From mid-2024,
<a href="https://islamicbank.au/">Islamic Bank Australia</a> is set to offer Australia’s 813,000 Muslims a banking service aligned with their religion’s strictures against profiting from interest or investing in harmful industries such as alcohol or gambling.</p>
<p>The fundamental distinguishing feature of an Islamic bank is its adherence to Islamic, or Sharia, law. As such, Islamic banks differ from their counterparts in four main ways: they do not charge or pay interest; they don’t engage in property speculation or activities such as derivatives trading; they do not invest in businesses that are deemed unlawful by Islam; and they typically appoint a second board specifically to oversee their compliance with these rules.</p>
<p>Why do these rules and conventions exist, and how do they work in practice?</p>
<h2>1. No interest</h2>
<p>For devout Muslims, conventional banking services are problematic because of the main way most banks make profit – by charging interest on loans.</p>
<p>Islam’s holy book, the Quran, prohibits all transactions associated with interest. The third chapter (the <a href="https://www.al-islam.org/enlightening-commentary-light-holy-quran-vol-3/section-11-usury-forbidden-means-achieving-success">Surah Al-Imran, verse 130</a>) says:</p>
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<p>O’ you who have Faith! Do not devour usury, doubled and multiplied, and be in awe of Allah; that you may be prosperous.</p>
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<p>Usury refers to lending money at unreasonable interest rates, but the term is <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/usury">sometimes used</a> to mean any charging of interest at all. Judaism and Catholicism have also traditionally outlawed usury, although historically they have allowed more wiggle room in how this is applied. </p>
<p>Sharia law prohibits banks from charging any interest on loans at all. But that doesn’t mean Islamic banks are opposed to earning profit.</p>
<p>To comply with Sharia law, an Islamic bank enters into a joint venture or partnership agreement with depositors and borrowers, which allows sharing of profit and loss between bank and customers.</p>
<p>Islamic banks provide loans under a profit-and-loss contract rather than one involving interest-based repayments. In this arrangement, borrowers pay an agreed share of their profits to the bank.</p>
<p>Similarly, deposits with the bank don’t earn interest, but instead they earn a return that will rise or fall in line with the bank’s overall profits.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-finance-provides-an-alternative-to-debt-based-systems-191168">Islamic finance provides an alternative to debt-based systems</a>
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<p>One potential pitfall of this model is it might encourage borrowers to take unnecessary business risks, knowing their bank will share the losses. This, in turn, would potentially reduce the returns to those who have deposited funds with the bank and also increase the credit risk for banks.</p>
<p>To help guard against this risk, borrowers typically agree to allow the bank to act as a partner in the business, rather than simply as a creditor. This lets the bank monitor the business’s performance more closely, and share directly in its profits and losses.</p>
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<img alt="Hands using laptop showing blurred spreadsheet and graphs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541149/original/file-20230804-27-htvbrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541149/original/file-20230804-27-htvbrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541149/original/file-20230804-27-htvbrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541149/original/file-20230804-27-htvbrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541149/original/file-20230804-27-htvbrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541149/original/file-20230804-27-htvbrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541149/original/file-20230804-27-htvbrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Rather than paying interest, business borrowers typically share a portion of their profits with the bank.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Campaign Creators/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<h2>2. No speculative assets</h2>
<p>The Quran (<a href="https://www.al-islam.org/enlightening-commentary-light-holy-quran-vol-3/section-36">Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 275</a>) says: </p>
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<p>…Allah has permitted trading and forbidden usury.</p>
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<p>From this, Islamic scholars infer that purchasing land or property purely for speculation is not permissible, but buying it to undertake economic activities is allowed. This means Islamic banks cannot engage in the kind of debt-based financing that underpins the home or business loans offered by many Australian banks.</p>
<p>Instead, an Islamic bank can finance a home purchase by taking part-ownership of the property, according to the proportion of the purchase price that was provided by bank finance rather the buyer’s own funds. </p>
<p>Similarly, Islamic banks can provide loans to buy land that will be used for economic activities, but cannot profit purely from land price appreciation.</p>
<p>Shariah law also prohibits Islamic banks from engaging in derivatives trading (trading in financial products such as futures contracts, options or swaps) because this involves speculating on an asset’s market performance, rather than on economic activity itself. </p>
<h2>3. No ‘socially harmful’ business</h2>
<p>Sharia law does not allow an Islamic bank to finance economic sectors that are deemed harmful to people’s wellbeing, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, adult entertainment, pork products, or arms production.</p>
<h2>4. Islamic corporate governance</h2>
<p>Islamic banks typically appoint two boards: a regular board of directors similar to those that govern most banks, and a Sharia supervisory board to oversee compliance with Islamic laws. </p>
<h2>What are Islamic Bank Australia’s prospects?</h2>
<p>The main challenge for Islamic Bank Australia will be to gain accreditation from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (<a href="https://www.apra.gov.au/">APRA</a>), which regulates Australia’s commercial banking industry. The bank says it is planning to apply for this in mid-2024, after which it can open to the public.</p>
<p>Next, it will need to attract a significant client base. As of October 2022 it reportedly had <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-12/australia-first-islamic-bank-granted-lending-licence-from-apra/101458162">almost 8,000 prospective customers</a> on its waiting list.</p>
<p>The arrival of Sharia-compliant banking will bring some new issues for Australia’s banking sector more broadly. </p>
<p>Australia does not yet have any supervisory body for monitoring Sharia-compliant banking, meaning all responsibility in this area would fall to the bank’s own supervisory board. In many Muslim-majority countries, such as Malaysia for example, a separate Sharia Advisory Council, typically appointed by the country’s central bank, oversees the Islamic finance industry. </p>
<p>Islamic Bank Australia’s Sharia committee has <a href="https://islamicbank.au/shariah-committee/">three members</a>: Malaysia-based Ashraf Md Hashim, who also sits on that country’s Sharia Advisory Council; Mohamed Ali Elgari, an Islamic economics academic in Saudi Arabia; and Australia-based Islamic banking scholar Rashid Raashed.</p>
<p>Many other Islamic banks worldwide also have overseas Sharia scholars sitting on their boards. But given the complexity of the role, these appointees will need to be familiar with current practices in Australia’s financial landscape too.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-islamic-banking-more-risky-compared-to-conventional-banking-62993">Is Islamic banking more risky compared to conventional banking?</a>
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<p>A related issue is the question of how Islamic Bank Australia will interact with Australia’s existing banks. Besides adhering to Sharia law, it will also need to comply with all of Australia’s banking regulatory requirements. In doing so, it will inevitably come across interest-based transactions. </p>
<p>For example, Islamic Bank Australia must maintain an account for settling any transactions with the Reserve Bank, and will have to refer to existing benchmarks, such as the underlying interest rate, as references for the dividends and charges applied to customers under its profit-and-loss contracts. </p>
<p>Islamic Bank Australia and existing banks will have to get used to adapting to the rules and customs, but it has been done successfully in other Western countries and so Australia should be no exception.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Islamic banks must follow Sharia law, and as such take a different approach to traditional Australian banks. They don’t charge interest, and are much more selective about which activities they fund.Md Safiullah (Safi), Senior Lecturer in Finance, RMIT UniversityAbul Shamsuddin, Professor of Finance, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1955432022-11-29T23:30:54Z2022-11-29T23:30:54ZHeadwear and hegemony: how ‘turban tossing’ protests are threatening Iran’s ruling clergy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497804/original/file-20221129-25-bis436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C9%2C6252%2C4468&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest image of Mahsa Amani, whose death ignited anti-regime demonstrations across Iran and the world.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://time.com/6221004/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-change/">ongoing protests</a> in Iran over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country’s “Guidance Patrol” (or morality police) have made world headlines. But there is another form of protest that has received less mainstream attention in Western media.</p>
<p>Whereas Amini was arrested for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”, thereby violating Iran’s mandatory hijab law, this new protest campaign involves another form of headwear – the amameh, or turban, worn by Shi’a clergy. Protesters have been deliberately knocking amameh off the heads of passing clerics.</p>
<p>The movement, known as “amameh parani”, has spread across Iran since early November. It has become particularly popular with young Iranians. Videos posted on twitter under #TurbanTossing and عمامه_پرانی# show amameh being knocked off in streets, cars, buses, metro stations and almost everywhere clergy appear in public. </p>
<p>In less than a month, amameh parani has become the symbol of a national satirical mockery of Shi’a clergy and their legitimacy in Iran, and another face of the global protests against the death of Mahsa Amini. </p>
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<h2>Clerical rule</h2>
<p>By focusing on the significance, symbolism and function of the amameh, the campaign explicitly targets the hegemony of Shi’a clergy over Iranian politics and society. </p>
<p>Clerical attire is composed of three pieces: the amameh, a turban made of 11 metres of thin white or black cotton material; a long cotton garment called a qabā; and the abā, the long open robe worn over it.</p>
<p>Students at Shi’a seminaries are ceremonially crowned with an amameh upon completing the first stage of their theological studies, which typically take three to five years.</p>
<p>Iranian clergy and their institutions view the amameh as sacred. They even use its colours to signify the lineage of a cleric, creating a class-based system both within and outside the clerical institutions. In its contemporary usage, for instance, a black amameh signifies a cleric’s claim of direct lineage to the prophet.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-veil-in-iran-has-been-an-enduring-symbol-of-patriarchal-norms-but-its-use-has-changed-depending-on-who-is-in-power-193689">The veil in Iran has been an enduring symbol of patriarchal norms – but its use has changed depending on who is in power</a>
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<p>Because of this, the amameh is the source of religious legitimacy and implies a sense of infallibility inherent in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Islam">Shi’a theology</a>. The Islamic Republic has translated this theological model systematically into politics. </p>
<p>The amameh is the only source of political authority in the Islamic Republic. The clergy occupy all positions of power and authority. They have established and protected an exclusive political and economic system. </p>
<p>Iran’s parliament, government, judiciary, military, economy and education system are either directly ruled by a cleric or by a clerical assembly. Candidates in Iran’s elections must be approved by the Guardian Council. The council also warrants all laws passed by the parliament in accordance with Shi’a Shari’a law.</p>
<p>The amameh is no longer a mere sign of religious learning or social status. Rather, it is the symbol of a hegemonic political power. Like defrocking in Christian churches, removing an amameh is synonymous with the removal of its associated rights, authority and prestige. </p>
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<h2>Crisis of legitimacy</h2>
<p>Prior to the Mahsa Amini protests, amameh parani was typically a deliberate cross-party attack at a perceived political opponent. It was typically performed by zealous followers of the conservatives, based on an edict from one of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini">Ruhollah Khomeini</a>’s revolutionary sermons in 1969 to toss the turbans of clergy deemed corrupt. </p>
<p>The current amameh parani campaign employs the same tactic for a different end. Dislodging an amameh in public is a sign of great irreverence and ridicule. It attacks what the attire represents: the Islamic Republic regime.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-is-using-every-effort-to-crush-protesters-intent-on-a-revolution-except-hearing-them-out-193684">Iran is using every effort to crush protesters intent on a revolution — except hearing them out</a>
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<p>Hand in hand with slogans such as “Clerics get lost!”, it’s a form of resistance against discrimination and exclusion, and represents the rejection of clericalism. It is a symbolic act against the entanglement of religion and politics in Iran.</p>
<p>The campaign is also about gender politics and the violent and discriminatory way clothing is used against women. It is common for clergy to verbally abuse women and girls in public for their “inappropriate” hijab . The death of Mahsa Amini highlighted the kind of gender-based abuse Iranian women have been subject to for more than four decades.</p>
<p>From Iranian clergy in parliament saying that tossing the amameh is “playing with the lion’s tail”, to Iraqi Shi'a Sadrist leader <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqtada_al-Sadr">Muqtada al-Sadr</a> warning against the spread of amameh parani across the border, it’s clear the symbolic meaning of the act is being felt.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-hijab-protests-reflect-society-wide-anger-at-regime-which-trashes-rule-of-law-and-human-rights-193773">Iran: hijab protests reflect society-wide anger at regime which trashes rule of law and human rights</a>
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<p>The reaction to protest in general has been typically <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/iran-world-must-take-meaningful-action-against-bloody-crackdown-as-death-toll-rises/">harsh and violent</a>, including calls for the execution of protesters. Courts have already <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/17/more-protesters-in-iran-sentenced-to-death-as-political-unrest-persists.html">imposed the death sentence</a> on some. These threats can extend to those who live outside Iran, including the co-author of this article, who has decided to remain anonymous. </p>
<p>Had any influential cleric opposed the killing of Mahsa Amini or other peaceful protesters, campaigns like amameh parani might not have taken off. But the regime’s demand for more brutality and violence has only further angered the public. </p>
<p>The Iranian clergy face a crisis of legitimacy beyond politics. Their challenge is no longer about maintaining hegemony over the country, but whether they will retain the legitimacy to perform their traditional religious roles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Negar Partow is affiliated with United Nations Association of New Zealand (volunteer). </span></em></p>Protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini have gone global. But in Iran there is a unique version, known as ‘amameh parani’, targeting a garment sacred to Shi’a clerics.Negar Partow, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1944072022-11-13T05:32:26Z2022-11-13T05:32:26ZCOP27 shines light on civil liberties in Egypt, but it’ll take work to achieve real freedom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494822/original/file-20221111-2705-ixuiuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activists gather in front of Tel Aviv's Embassy of Egypt to demonstrate in support of activist Alaa Abdel Fattah.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ability to speak freely in Egypt is currently very constrained. Individuals, groups and NGOs face significant barriers to participation in the political process. And the same holds for the exchange of opinions in the everyday public sphere. </p>
<p>But promising signs have emerged during the COP27 international climate change talks in the country. <a href="https://egyptianstreets.com/2022/11/09/human-rights-watch-and-mada-masr-websites-unblocked-in-egypt/?fbclid=IwAR1-1krMRWyRNs2KK7JHSl2qU_UfC8mIIoMQwDkhkWvVIIVew2ZCLTKnuqM">Egyptian Streets</a>, a grassroots online media outlet, has reported that the independent newspaper <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mada.masr/">Mada Masr</a> has been de-censored, along with <a href="https://medium.com/">Medium</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/">Human Rights Watch</a>, for the first time in five years. </p>
<p>Other outlets, however, such as <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/">Al Jazeera</a> and <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/">Huffington Post</a>, remain censored and unavailable online.</p>
<p>Back <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/opinion/sunday/egypt-censorship-crowdsourcing.html">in 2018</a>, journalist Yasmine El Rashidi called attention to the “novel” degree of censorship of political and social speech in Egypt. She labelled this a “moment of crisis” and alleged that the divided, antagonistic state of civil society in Egypt was part of the problem. </p>
<p>From <a href="https://www.madamasr.com/en/2016/02/20/news/culture/appeals-court-sentences-novelist-ahmed-naji-to-2-years-prison/">graphic novels</a> to <a href="https://egyptindependent.com/update-lebanese-tourist-who-insulted-egypt-is-released-from-arrest-deported/">Facebook</a> rants and now <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/1/375471/Egypt/-Egyptian-influencers-sentenced-to--years-in-priso.aspx">TikTok</a> dance videos, social speech and expression have been subject to significant governmental intervention. Young people have been imprisoned for multi-year terms for holding up <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/american-student-released-after-486-days-in-egyptian-prison/2020/07/06/e68c60f4-bfdb-11ea-8908-68a2b9eae9e0_story.html">signs</a>, making <a href="https://egyptianstreets.com/2018/11/02/the-sherine-incident-a-tale-of-two-niles/">jokes</a>, producing <a href="https://egyptianstreets.com/2018/11/02/the-sherine-incident-a-tale-of-two-niles/">satirical songs</a>, eating <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/12/egyptian-pop-singer-sent-to-prison-for-video-that-incited-debauchery?CMP=gu_com">fruit</a> suggestively, or laying down <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-some-governments-fear-even-teens-on-tiktok-140389">dance moves</a>. Professors have <a href="https://www.egyptindependent.com/egypt-court-dismisses-university-professor-over-posting-videos-of-her-dancing/">lost their jobs</a> for posting dance videos to their personal social media.</p>
<p>So do the decisions taken during <a href="https://cop27.eg/#/">COP27</a> in Egypt suggest a change of heart? That the government is considering relinquishing the control of everyday space? And that it’s decided to fulfil its post-revolutionary republican promise?</p>
<p>The jury is still out, but much depends on swift correction of deficits in the judicial system, coupled with a broader and permanent opening of Egyptian society.</p>
<h2>Deep, internal tension</h2>
<p>The problem for the country is that the degree and scope of governmental intervention is countenanced by many stakeholders, for a variety of conflicting reasons. Feminists and hijabi women, human rights groups and progressives, parents and their children, do not necessarily agree on what it is permissible to regulate, or why.</p>
<p>Here are some examples that illustrate this. Electro-folk festival music (mahraganat), deemed a corruption of republican values, has been <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/life-style/entertainment/2022/10/17/Egypt-temporarily-bans-hugely-popular-mahraganat-singers">banned from public performance</a>. Female entrepreneurship and social media influence have been discouraged as a breach of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-some-governments-fear-even-teens-on-tiktok-140389">family values</a>, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/08/17/egypt-spate-morality-prosecutions-women">normalising gendered guardianship</a> over female chastity and morality. Feminists will invite the public prosecutor to punish harassment, but also protest when female dress is surveilled and punished.</p>
<p>As a result, youth speech, political activism about rights, and Islamist expression have all been subject to shifting prosecutions. </p>
<p>Arguably, civil society is the ultimate loser, subdued by a powerful state that enforces vague laws against a variety of groups and speakers almost willy-nilly. </p>
<p>Expressing their own doubts about the freedoms of Egyptians, the bipartisan Working Group on Egypt has <a href="https://pomed.org/working-group-on-egypt-letter-to-president-biden-ahead-of-cop27/">sent multiple letters</a> to US president Joe Biden and the <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/06/30/working-group-on-egypt-letter-to-secretary-pompeo-on-escalating-rights-abuses-pub-82212">Trump administration</a> over the past three years.</p>
<p>A group of Democrats penned a bicameral letter to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/19/us-legislators-call-on-egypts-el-sisi-to-release-prisoners">on 19 October 2020</a>. More recently, a group of past <a href="https://twitter.com/MadaMasr/status/1587741407292391424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">Nobel Prize recipients</a> have witheringly asked whether a future without rights is a future worth saving. Of particular concern is the Egyptian-British activist and thinker <a href="https://twitter.com/MadaMasr/status/1589324235134193670">Alaa Abd el-Fattah</a>, currently imprisoned and on a hunger strike.</p>
<p>The barriers to speech and debate are not just accidents or occasional governmental heavy-handedness. They indicate a deep, internal tension within and between the <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Egypt_2014.pdf">2014 Egyptian constitution</a>, the current regime’s stated aim to advance civil society interests, and prevailing social and political practice.</p>
<p>The 2014 republican constitution guarantees substantial and conflicting freedoms. The preamble describes Egypt as a land of popular sovereignty. But Article 2 declares that Islamic sharia is the “principal source of legislation”.</p>
<p>Article 64 characterises freedom of belief as “absolute”, and freedom of thought, speech and expression are guaranteed to all in Article 65. But the liberal letter of constitutional law is hard to put into practice. </p>
<p>Take the Danish satirical cartoons published <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/charlie-hebdo-attack">in 2005</a>, and republished by Charlie Hebdo, as an example. My students routinely argue for the prosecution of religious blasphemy, citing freedom of religious belief, at the expense of freedom of expression. The tension between rights is hard to work out.</p>
<p>According to the close invigilation of independent media, legal practice clashes with constitutional commitments to a free civil society. Political and sometimes even apolitical speech is criminalised as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jul/27/fake-news-becomes-tool-of-repression-after-egypt-passes-new-law">“false news”</a> or <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/egypt">joining a terrorist organisation</a>. </p>
<p>Recently, <a href="https://mada33.appspot.com/www.madamasr.com/en/2022/11/01/news/u/security-crackdown-sees-arrest-of-hundreds-amid-calls-for-protest-on-nov-11/">about 150 people were detained</a> over possible economic protests. This heavy-handed reaction to ongoing dissent is paradoxical in a post-revolutionary republic. </p>
<p>Social media is a particularly fraught landscape, where careless or non-political speech becomes a permanent written record that can be held against speakers.</p>
<p>Civil society groups also argue that the criminal justice system fails to protect individuals in the exercise of their rights. Delays in justice, lengthy pretrial detention and rotation – detaining, eventually releasing, and then rearresting people under new charges – is the norm, not the exception. </p>
<p>So what are the signs of change, if any?</p>
<h2>Straws in the wind?</h2>
<p>Egypt recently introduced two new criminal justice initiatives amid complaints that its commitment to human rights was <a href="https://cihrs.org/egypt-national-strategy-for-human-rights-a-ruse-to-show-international-community-and-donor-states-that-political-reform-is-underway/?lang=en">more show</a> than substance. The first is a <a href="https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/116884/Exclusive-Egyptian-MP-Khouli-Presidential-pardon-committee-seeks-to-integrate">newly revived</a> Presidential Pardoning Committee, first formed in 2016. It extends leniency to detained or sentenced offenders who have not committed violent acts. </p>
<p>The second, <a href="https://www.madamasr.com/en/2022/07/01/feature/politics/how-power-blind-accountability-mechanisms-failed-nayera-ashraf-and-countless-other-women/">“Immediate Justice”</a>, looks to increase the swiftness of justice. But this could compress death penalty trials to a matter of days, potentially compromising the <a href="https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/17279.aspx">rule of law</a>. </p>
<p>Thousands of prisoners have been released since April, and President el-Sisi has asked for the <a href="https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/115496/President-Sisi-directs-pardon-committee-to-reintegrate-released-prisoners-into">social reintegration</a> of those pardoned, not just their release. These statements suggest that the end-game of current judicial reforms is transformative: to <a href="https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/465613.aspx">“close”</a> the political prisoners file, complementing the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/egypt/egypt-ending-state-emergency-start-insufficient">official rollback</a> of the state of emergency in October 2021. </p>
<p>Arguably, Egypt in 2022 might be described as currently at a crossroads. It is a young, massively online country. Progress is in the air. And while policy change is needed, change is also needed in a deeper and more logically consistent register. </p>
<p>The regime recently called for a <a href="https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/50/1201/467990/AlAhram-Weekly/Egypt/INTERVIEW-A-new-national-alignment.aspx">new national dialogue</a>, pointing towards a <a href="https://www.sis.gov.eg/UP/SIS%20English%20Publications/%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%A1%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%86%20%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AC%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%B2%D9%89%20%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%89.pdf">“new republic”</a> grounded in dignity and a “comprehensive concept of human rights”. This year has been declared the <a href="https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/422813.aspx">“year of civil society”</a>. </p>
<p>How might a new civil society theory for a new republic look?</p>
<h2>What needs to happen</h2>
<p>In my <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41296-018-0253-0">view</a> the desired outcome would be a liberal republic – with respect to the limits placed on speech, and with respect to the limits of governmental interference in civil society.</p>
<p>A liberal theory places quasi-absolutist rights of speech and expression at the heart of a tolerant republic, with equality under law. </p>
<p>In such a space, the ability to be wrong and to experiment with different ideas is respected. Violent contestation then can be distinguished from differences of opinion. Difference, as opposed to mere diversity, is respected.</p>
<p>In Egypt, that would mean tolerating self-expression by women, veiled and unveiled, and respecting the rights of the LGBTI community to be present in the public sphere. It also means accepting the inevitabilty of difference and dissent. </p>
<p>For liberty to work in Egypt, not just a national dialogue, but a clearer understanding of the normative politics – and power – of dialogue itself, should be the goal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Barker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many people accept the Egyptian government’s restrictions on freedoms, for a variety of conflicting reasons.Chris Barker, Assistant Professor of Political Science, American University in CairoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1913662022-10-11T14:02:01Z2022-10-11T14:02:01ZWhat drives Al-Shabaab in Somalia: foreign forces out, Sharia law in and overthrow the government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486829/original/file-20220927-24-32z7kt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Hayat Hotel in Mogadishu where a 30-hour Al-Shabaab siege left 21 people dead in August 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hassan Elmi/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In response to external – and at times internal – pressure, Al-Shabaab’s insurgency in Somalia has evolved over time. </p>
<p>Before 2008, Al-Shabaab was a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21520844.2019.1658986">small player</a> within the larger Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The Union was an umbrella entity that emerged around 2003 to provide justice and security in Mogadishu in the absence of a formal state.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17531050701452382">Ethiopia</a> – in support of the transitional Somali government – militarily defeated the Islamic Courts Union in 2006. Over the next two years, Al-Shabaab broke away from the Union and rose to prominence in Somalia.</p>
<p>It transformed from a terrorist organisation, fighting Ethiopian occupation, to something of a de-facto state. It gained territory, eventually controlling most of southern Somalia. </p>
<p>Between 2010 and 2013, the group survived <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21520844.2019.1658986">military and territorial losses</a>, as well as a significant <a href="https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/140221_Bryden_ReinventionOfAlShabaab_Web.pdf">leadership crisis</a>. </p>
<p>Al-Shabaab adapted and honed its ability to conduct attacks. It also established systems to tax businesses and the public, both inside and outside of the territory it controlled. The group began to provide an alternative justice structure based on a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/35091/chapter-abstract/299149628?redirectedFrom=fulltext">strict and harsh interpretation</a> of <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/understanding-sharia-intersection-islam-and-law">Sharia</a> (Islamic law) – though its understanding of Sharia was highly debatable even among <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/07/15/islamism-salafism-and-jihadism-a-primer/">Salafi circles</a>. </p>
<p>Today, Al-Shabaab remains the most <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/expanding-us-counterterrorism-somalia-necessary-insufficient">formidable challenge</a> to the Somali government, and its regional and international partners. </p>
<p>Despite the shifts it has experienced over 15 years, some things have remained crucial to Al-Shabaab’s mission in Somalia. Scholars have noted <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/35091/chapter/299149628">three goals</a> that have been continually reasserted:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>ridding the country of foreign troops</p></li>
<li><p>implementing Sharia </p></li>
<li><p>defeating the Somali federal government </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Fully understanding these motivations, however, can be a challenge. This is because the organisation’s goals can change with time and the views of the leadership can be different from those of recruits. </p>
<p>Yet, examining these motivations offers important and actionable insights into the factors that perpetuate the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-55795025">conflict in Somalia</a> or block efforts to resolve it.</p>
<h2>Hostility to foreign troops</h2>
<p>Al-Shabaab’s nationalist stance against foreign troops in Somalia has been a theme throughout its evolution.</p>
<p>Following the US backing of a warlord coalition during the Islamic Courts Union era and Ethiopia’s military intervention, Al-Shabaab began to <a href="https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/islamic-courts-union#text_block_19602">spread a message</a> in opposition to the presence of foreign forces in Somalia. </p>
<p>There were <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17531055.2020.1863099">“maximalist and violent pan-Islamist members”</a> within the group’s leadership ranks at the time. However, Al-Shabaab’s outspokenness against foreign forces resonated with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17531055.2020.1863099">deep-rooted Somali hostility</a> against Ethiopia and broader nationalist narratives that existed, separate from Salafi and extremist trends. Ultimately, this served as an incredible recruitment tool.</p>
<p>After Ethiopia withdrew forces in 2009, Al-Shabaab shifted its focus to the expulsion of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). The mission’s role included <a href="https://amisom-au.org/mission-profile/military-component/">protecting federal institutions</a>. AMISOM has since been replaced by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/somalia-is-still-fragile-what-the-new-african-union-mission-can-do-to-help-stabilise-it-180430">African Union Transition Mission in Somalia</a>, which Al-Shaaab continues to oppose. </p>
<p>The group also wants to <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/inside-minds-somalia%E2%80%99s-ascendant-insurgents">get rid of the US</a>. This is due to the country’s airstrikes and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61631439">special operations forces in Somalia</a>. </p>
<p>Turkey is another <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/al-shabaabs-expanding-anti-turkish-campaign-in-somalia/">unwelcome foreign power</a> because it supports the Somali federal government. It also advises and trains the military. </p>
<p>Al-Shabaab additionally opposes the <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/inside-minds-somalia%E2%80%99s-ascendant-insurgents">United Arab Emirates’ economic interests</a> in Somali ports and military bases.</p>
<h2>Implementing Sharia</h2>
<p>Implementing its own version of Sharia (Islamic law) has remained a pillar of Al-Shabaab’s agenda throughout its existence. </p>
<p>The group embraces a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/07/15/islamism-salafism-and-jihadism-a-primer/">Salafist interpretation</a> of Sharia. This includes the imposition of harsh punishments for infractions and the rejection of Sufi traditions that many Somalis follow. However, this goal has, as researchers have pointed out, taken “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/35091/chapter-abstract/299149628?redirectedFrom=fulltext">different forms according to the situation and the strength of the organisation</a>”. </p>
<p>For instance, in 2006, Al-Shabaab didn’t antagonise Sufi orders in the way it did between 2008 and 2009 because it wasn’t as powerful. As the group began to experience military pressure and territorial losses in the period after 2011-2012, the implementation of Sharia varied across Somalia, with some Al-Shabaab provincial (<em>wilayat</em>) governors operating more reasonably than others.</p>
<p>More recently, in 2019, Ahmed Diriye – Al-Shabaab’s current leader – expressed a tougher stance. He declared that Sharia ought to be implemented without “<a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Al-Shabaab-IMEP_Bacon_March-2022.pdf">concession or compromise</a>”. </p>
<h2>Desire to govern</h2>
<p>Defeating the Somali federal government and federal member states is another important agenda item for Al-Shabaab. </p>
<p>The group sees itself as an alternative to the Somali government. This is evident in its efforts to govern territory. It also provides security, justice and other services that the government <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/inside-minds-somalia%E2%80%99s-ascendant-insurgents">has failed</a> to effectively provide. </p>
<p>The organisation’s influence in the sphere of governance is notable in three areas: justice, taxation and dispute mediation. </p>
<p>First, Al-Shabaab’s shadow court system has offered pathways to justice for Somalis. It addresses the problems of the population it controls, including divorce, inheritance and land disputes. It then provides rulings it can actually enforce. </p>
<p>The government’s court and justice system are <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/somali-gov-t-seeks-to-crack-down-on-al-shabab-shadow-courts-/6705224.html">reportedly</a> less consistent. Its rulings aren’t always enforced and it faces issues of corruption.</p>
<p>Al-Shabaab’s courts <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/somali-gov-t-seeks-to-crack-down-on-al-shabab-shadow-courts-/6705224.html">attract residents</a> from areas outside the organisation’s immediate territorial control. This is because the courts help solve practical problems. </p>
<p>Second, the group maintains a taxation system that has spread beyond government-controlled territories. This <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Al-Shabaab-IMEP_Bacon_March-2022.pdf">likely surpasses</a> the Somali government’s own taxation abilities. </p>
<p>Through its taxation of businesses, transportation, ports and other sectors, Al-Shabaab provides <a href="https://hiraalinstitute.org/a-losing-game-countering-al-shababs-financial-system/">some services</a>, such as regulating the production of certain export products. However, the main benefit of “taxation” is protection from the group. </p>
<p>The organisation also collects <em>zakat</em>, a charitable contribution required for Muslims. However, it uses much of this collection to bolster its own coffers rather than redistributing it to the community. </p>
<p>Third, Al-Shabaab has presented itself as capable of successfully intervening in clan disputes. In an <a href="https://news.siteintelgroup.com/Jihadist-News/in-hearts-and-minds-effort-shabaab-boasts-of-settling-dispute-between-conflicting-tribes-in-southern-somalia.html">October 2020 press release</a>, the organisation claimed it’s “keen to solve the problems and differences that arise between the tribes, and it has shown remarkable success in settling decades-long disputes among them”. </p>
<p>Mediating clan disputes is central to Al-Shabaab’s ambitions to establish a unified Islamic state. </p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>After 15 years of conflict, Al-Shabaab remains a significant threat to stability in Somalia and its neighbours, <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-reasons-why-militants-are-targeting-kenyas-lamu-county-176519">like Kenya</a>. </p>
<p>Understanding its motives to expel foreign troops, implement its version of Sharia and defeat the government raises questions on how to end their insurgency. </p>
<p>With the <a href="https://theconversation.com/somalias-election-raises-more-questions-than-answers-183833">recent election</a> of Somali president Hassan Mohamud, there appears to be renewed government focus on not just weakening Al-Shabaab, but eliminating it. As part of this effort, the government has “<a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/ma-awisley-militias-in-central-somalia-mobilizing-against-al-shabab-/6776048.html">hailed</a>” mobilisation efforts by local militia (called Ma'awisley) against the group. </p>
<p>The new administration has called for the expansion of these resistance efforts. It has <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/ma-awisley-militias-in-central-somalia-mobilizing-against-al-shabab-/6776048.html">sent government troops</a> to join local militia in an offensive against Al-Shabaab. Time will tell if this new strategy will strategically alter the course in the fight against the group. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/somalia/309-considering-political-engagement-al-shabaab-somalia">Political engagement</a> with Al-Shabaab is another potential avenue that could complement military operations. </p>
<p>However, prospects for negotiation are poor. This is because of Al-Shabaab’s reluctance to engage in negotiations, its uncompromising position on foreign troop withdrawal and the government’s commitment to eliminating the group.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daisy Muibu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Al-Shabaab’s evolution over nearly two decades has been centred around three major goals.Daisy Muibu, Assistant Professor, University of AlabamaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1715722021-11-14T14:45:05Z2021-11-14T14:45:05ZMore tragedy in Afghanistan is just beginning after the U.S. withdrawal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431697/original/file-20211112-21-o2mqdc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C360%2C5475%2C3278&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Men wait in a line to receive cash for food at an initiative organized by the World Food Program (WFP) in Kabul, Afghanistan, in November 2021. The country is faced with harrowing predictions of growing poverty and hunger. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bram Janssen) </span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/more-tragedy-in-afghanistan-is-just-beginning-after-the-u-s--withdrawal" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The Americans are gone, the war is over, but the worst is arguably yet to come in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The country is facing an unprecedented crisis. Afghan civilians have always disproportionately experienced the effects of war and they will now also disproportionately experience what may be an even worse peace — if one can even call it that. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/27/afghanistan-taliban-promises-to-eradicate-groups-seeking-chaos">Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP)</a> is on the rise in the east, and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/13/the-talibans-sharia-is-the-most-brutal-of-all/">the executions</a> of former Afghan National Security Forces, peace activists and cultural icons are being carried out by the Taliban. Women and girls are in a particularly dangerous place <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-taliban-returns-20-years-of-progress-for-women-looks-set-to-disappear-overnight-165012">as many of their hard-earned freedoms have been overturned.</a></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-world-must-not-look-away-as-the-taliban-sexually-enslaves-women-and-girls-165426">The world must not look away as the Taliban sexually enslaves women and girls</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>The economy of Afghanistan is faring no better in that, essentially, there isn’t one. <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/11/1105282">Basic services</a> are barely running and <a href="https://www.jurist.org/news/2021/11/afghanistan-dispatches-many-government-employees-have-not-received-any-pay-for-nearly-three-months-now/">salaries are not being paid</a>. While the West rightfully pressures the Taliban to allow girls to attend school, there is no funding for these schools and teachers aren’t receiving wages.</p>
<p>Both public and private assets <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/taliban-takeover-how-frozen-assets-foreign-aid-impacts-afghanistan/">have been also been frozen.</a> Although estimates vary, the Afghan economy is expected to shrink by <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghanistans-economic-collapse-could-prompt-refugee-crisis-imf-2021-10-19/">30 per cent</a> and the lingering costs of the American withdrawal will be enormous. </p>
<h2>Starvation a looming risk</h2>
<p>Partially contributing to the collapse of the Afghan economy is diminished humanitarian aid. For a country to be considered <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58328246">aid-dependent</a>, 10 per cent of its GDP must come from foreign aid. </p>
<p>In the case of Afghanistan, that number hovers around <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58328246">40 per cent</a>. Coupled with this, billions of dollars in state and private assets, estimated to be in the range of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-17/u-s-freezes-nearly-9-5-billion-afghanistan-central-bank-assets">US$8-10 billion</a>, have been frozen. </p>
<p>While Afghanistan is no stranger to economic shocks — <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2015/2/20/afghan-economy-in-crisis-after-us-troops-withdrawal">troop withdrawals in 2014 weakened</a> the Afghan economy significantly — it nevertheless rebounded. But nothing compares to the situation that currently threatens Afghanistan, and with millions facing a <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/11/13/the-world-must-act-now-to-stop-afghans-starving">food crisis</a>, the stakes this time around are much higher. </p>
<p>It’s estimated that without significant and urgent assistance, hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan risk starvation. The United Nations has, most recently, estimated that without urgent aid, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/10/1103932">22.8 million people</a> are likely to experience severe food stresses. </p>
<p>Food alone is the most immediate concern, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/08/asia/afghanistan-health-care-collapse-intl-cmd/index.html">but with the complete breakdown of the health-care system</a>, the food crisis will be compounded as treatable diseases proliferate through the country. Health-care services have essentially <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/afghanistan-health-care-hospitals/2021/10/19/f552bc96-2c4a-11ec-b17d-985c186de338_story.html">ground to a halt</a> and medicine is in extremely short supply. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A baby swaddled in a blue blanket lies on a desk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431698/original/file-20211112-13043-1xvulzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431698/original/file-20211112-13043-1xvulzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431698/original/file-20211112-13043-1xvulzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431698/original/file-20211112-13043-1xvulzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431698/original/file-20211112-13043-1xvulzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431698/original/file-20211112-13043-1xvulzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431698/original/file-20211112-13043-1xvulzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A baby lies on a doctor’s desk before being examined at the hospital in Mirbacha Kot, Afghanistan, in October 2021. Health-care workers are working without salaries, medicine and amid frequent power outages as Afghanistan’s economy crumbles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bram Janssen)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/who-gets-to-escape-the-taliban">Most of the aid workers who were issuing high-impact assistance left</a> following the United States withdrawal and subsequent evacuation over the summer. With winter approaching, further disaster is looming, and there are concerns that most of the country will not be able to afford electricity. The cash shortages are especially dire as <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/afghanistan-cant-pay-its-electricity-bills/">Afghanistan imports approximately 78 per cent of its energy needs.</a> </p>
<h2>The dilemma</h2>
<p>Although the worst impacts of the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover can be mitigated by foreign aid, it’s a Band-aid solution that only goes so far. Western states are grappling with what looks like an intractable dilemma — how to support the Afghan people without supporting and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/world/asia/taliban-usa.html">by extension lending legitimacy</a> to the Taliban government?</p>
<p>Western states are trying to strike this balance, but have not yet found a way. And it’s debatable whether such a strategy even exists. Aid can be administered, but sustainable capacity and development cannot be built without engagement with the government — one that the West isn’t willing to recognize.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Afghan women in head scarves carry signs and chant during a protest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431704/original/file-20211112-15519-1atdbfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431704/original/file-20211112-15519-1atdbfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431704/original/file-20211112-15519-1atdbfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431704/original/file-20211112-15519-1atdbfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431704/original/file-20211112-15519-1atdbfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431704/original/file-20211112-15519-1atdbfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431704/original/file-20211112-15519-1atdbfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Afghan women chant during a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, demanding the right to work and education.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ahmad Halabisaz)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>So, just as during the 20-year war itself, Afghanistan is in a stalemate.</p>
<p>International organizations, particularly the UN and to an extent the European Union, can play a key role in helping prevent further catastrophe, but there are limits to what they can provide. </p>
<p>The UN is better positioned to do this. Throughout the course of the war in Afghanistan, the UN tried to remain a third-party mediator that promoted the interests and well-being of the Afghan people. The UN can also play a <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/un-and-humanitarian-partners-scale-life-saving-response-crisis-afghanistan-and">key co-ordinating role</a> free of some of the political pressures national governments face by working with non-governmental organizations whose primary goals are focused on alleviating the unfolding humanitarian crisis. </p>
<p>But international alliances also face dilemmas.</p>
<h2>Vague benchmarks</h2>
<p>The European Union, for example, has identified <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021/09/21/afghanistan-council-conclusions-set-out-the-eu-s-position-and-next-steps/#">vague benchmarks</a> that will inform its future engagement with Afghanistan: respect for freedom of movement for foreign nationals and Afghan nationals; human rights, with a particular emphasis on the rights of women and girls; allowing humanitarian operations to proceed; and establishing a representative government.</p>
<p>The difficulty is, ultimately, that thresholds have not been specified. How much progress, and which metrics, need to be achieved remain unclear and unspecified. Does engagement necessitate a return to comparable levels of rights that were seen before the Taliban took over? </p>
<p>This is not something that is unique to the EU. Every western state is grappling with what the Taliban must do before sanctions are lifted and diplomatic ties are established — if they ever are.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, as the West contemplates these questions, the people of Afghanistan will suffer profoundly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171572/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Rice does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the West contemplates how to engage with the increasingly brutal Taliban government in Afghanistan, the country’s people will suffer enormously.Jeffrey Rice, Assistant Professor, Political Science, MacEwan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1681312021-10-19T13:57:10Z2021-10-19T13:57:10ZWhy Shari'a law might be better suited for state-building in Somalia than external ideas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426658/original/file-20211015-27-16c9sux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stability and peace cannot be produced by importing legal experts to hold workshops and advise on laws.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>August 2021 turned out to be an appropriate moment to read the new book by <a href="https://politics.ucsc.edu/faculty/index.php?uid=mmassoud">Mark Fathi Massoud</a>, a professor of politics and legal studies. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/sharia-inshallah/AFF6E3D685A2D940E834BDA4F9431617"><em>Shari’a, Insha’allah</em></a> is in part about the failures of external projects of state building. As I was reading it, such a project was suddenly and dramatically <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/24/mismatch-of-mindsets-why-the-taliban-won-in-afghanistan">unravelling</a> in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Since 1990, Somalia too has been the subject of a repeated and sustained external ‘state-building’ interventions. A range of governments and international bodies have sought to reassemble some sort of central authority over the territory of the former Republic of Somalia. Those interventions have some common features: they have very often laid heavy emphasis on the law; and they have had very little success.</p>
<p>As the comparison with Afghanistan suggests, the tone of <em>Shari’a, Insha’allah</em> is often sombre. It is a study in how colonial visions of legal order tend to create disorder and oppression. A central theme here is a repeated pattern:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Attempts to centralise power through asserting the dominance of a particular understanding of the law have collided with resilient alternative ideas of the law.</p></li>
<li><p>The laws produced by the state have lacked legitimacy in local eyes, and the structures that are intended to enforce those laws have been corrupt and arbitrary. </p></li>
<li><p>State law has appeared as exotic and tyrannical – whether it has been used in the service of the rule of the British, or the Italians, or former president Siad Barre or the governments in power since </p></li>
<li><p>The consequence is that Somalis today readily see the current governance building efforts by <a href="https://www.so.undp.org/content/somalia/en/home/democratic-governance-and-peacebuilding/rule-of-law.html">international agencies</a> as the lineal successors of earlier colonial interventions.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>But the book is also optimistic, an impassioned piece of advocacy for the value of shari’a as a source of justice. ‘Shari’a law’ has become a hot-button phrase for a certain sort of <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7820353/Extremists-holding-Sharia-law-trials-prisoners-inside-British-jails-former-inmate-claims.html">hostile media commentary internationally</a>. The tendency is to bundle up multiple negative ideas about Islam: on the treatment of women, amputations and the like. This book aims to challenge that. </p>
<p>The message is a clear one: stability and peace cannot be produced by importing legal experts to hold workshops and advise on laws. They must rest on the everyday processes of dispute resolution that have repeatedly reemerged amid violence and disruption. And in Somalia those processes are understood – by those who are active in them, and by the ordinary people who turn to them – as rooted in shari’a. </p>
<p>So while Massoud’s book is a story of failure, it is also a story of success – and of hope.</p>
<h2>Two ideas of ‘the rule of law’</h2>
<p>The telling itself raises some questions, though, and at times I found it a little frustrating, or even confusing. The best way I can explain this is through discussion of what are, I think, the two key themes. One is ‘shari’a’. The other is ‘the rule of law’ (the definite article is important). </p>
<p>The final chapter seems to emphasise the flexibility of each of these ideas. Yet in the earlier chapters it is apparent that the terms can have much more definite, less flexible meanings.</p>
<p>Shari’a is sometimes described as a specialist subject based on a close knowledge of multiple sources (p. 216, for example). It is also sometimes described as a blend of such knowledge with customary practice (p. 48). It can also be an ‘independent, fixed and sacred constraint on political power’ (p. 110). Those sound like rather different imaginings. </p>
<p>‘The rule of law’, meanwhile, appears as something quite different to the sort of ‘legal order’ that states seek to impose – ‘rule by law’, as some would call it. As Massoud puts it, the rule of law is an inherently desirable condition, in which the state itself is constrained by the law. He calls this ‘limited government’. </p>
<p>Yet he also uses ‘the rule of law’ in a more expansive sense, linking it to ‘political liberalism’ and the ‘promotion of human rights, equality and liberty for all’ (p.38).</p>
<p>The tensions between those two ideas of ‘the rule of law’ are significant. Surely, constraining the state is a desirable aim. But does oppression come always and only from the state? And is opposition to the state always liberatory? Massoud tells the story of the sheikhs who bravely stood up to denounce the progressive <a href="https://www.qscience.com/docserver/fulltext/messa/2015/1/messa.2015.4.pdf?expires=1634286344&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=7E2CADE9B01338D45059502E7FA91052#:%7E:text=The%20Somali%20government%20under%20President,the%20Family%20Law%20of%201975">Family Law</a> introduced by <a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/somalia-fall-of-siad-barre-civil-war/">Siad Barre’s dictatorial regime</a>. They certainly were brave, and they paid dearly for their courage.</p>
<p>But were they just resisting dictatorship? They opposed the Family Law because of its insistence on gender equality – not because Siad Barre was a dictator. So they were asserting their own, inflexible, reading of shari’a. They were resisting a dictatorial state, but also resisting ideas of gender equality. </p>
<p>So does the ‘rule of law’ just mean constraining the state - or does it mean something more?</p>
<h2>Flexibility of shari'a</h2>
<p>I found this apparent uncertainty most troubling in the fascinating chapter on women activists in contemporary Somaliland, and their deployment of shari’a as a means to assert what are described as ‘women’s rights’. Shari’a, Massoud argues persuasively, is flexible enough to provide the tools for this. </p>
<p>But what exactly is the place of shari'a in this example? The activists interviewed by Massoud talk about shari'a but seem to be deriving their core idea of women’s rights from international norms. They have a particular kind of education, and are in dialogue with international NGOs. So this example might show that shari’a <em>can</em> be used as a way to pursue a particular idea of ‘women’s rights’ that aligns with current international human rights norms – but only where the desirability of those norms is already accepted. That would imply that those international human rights norms set the goal – shari'a just offers a route to them.</p>
<p>There is a further aspect to that, again revealed in this discussion of Somaliland. Women activists are reliant on male sheikhs to provide the interpretations and judgements that they need on topics like violence against women, child marriage and female genital mutilation. No matter how learned women may be, shari’a is understood to be rooted in men’s knowledge of sources. It may be flexible, but access to it is very unequal, and it seems to be rather more readily accessible to what is called here the ‘patriarchy’ than to activists who challenge that patriarchy. </p>
<p>This book shows that shari’a is not just a tool of violent radicals with a particular set of ideas about sexual morality and gender relations. But it perhaps also tells us that what kind of ‘rule of law’ shari'a sustains is a matter of contest – asserting or challenging state authority, arguing over the rights of ordinary women and men – and those contests are uneven, and their outcomes unpredictable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Willis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Shari’a, most certainly, is not just a tool of violent radicals with a particular set of ideas about sexual morality and gender relations.Justin Willis, Professor of History, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1688102021-10-04T15:29:51Z2021-10-04T15:29:51ZThe Taliban aren’t taking Afghanistan back to the middle ages – they’re subverting Islam’s sound medieval legal principles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424024/original/file-20210930-26-1umoq4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C2844%2C1833&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harsh punishments: the Taliban have announced they will reinstate execution and amputations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Taliban are back in the saddle and, with them, the dreadful spectre of the harsh punishments meted out in their previous time in power: public hangings and stonings, amputation of hands and public floggings. Veteran Taliban fighter and senior official Mullah Nooruddin Turabi <a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-afghanistan-kabul-taliban-22f5107f1dbd19c8605b5b5435a9de54">explained in a recent interview</a> that these penalties – including hangings and amputations – are “very necessary” in order to achieve “deterrence”. </p>
<p>When the Taliban first came to power in 1996, observers predicted Afghanistan would be propelled back into the middle ages. Are we headed the same way today? In fact, far from signalling a return to the spirit of Islam’s medieval legal tradition, the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic criminal justice is an exceedingly narrow and, arguably, misguided version.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1441360533278576640"}"></div></p>
<p>On a fundamental level, the Taliban’s approach suggests disrespect for some basic rules of traditional Islamic criminal law. Indeed, the Taliban amputate the hands of thieves not because it is particularly “Islamic” to do so, but simply – and cruelly – because they can.</p>
<h2>Islamic criminal law and human rights</h2>
<p>Traditionally, Islamic law, or <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-27307249">Sharia</a>, is based on the few legal verses contained in Islam’s sacred scripture, the Qur’an, as well as on the sizeable body of reports about sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad (who died in AD632), the <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195390155/obo-9780195390155-0083.xml#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CSunna%E2%80%9D%20is%20the%20Arabic%20term,of%20life%20and%20legal%20precedent.&text=In%20the%20framework%20of%20Islamic,law%20and%20belief%20as%20well.">Sunna</a>. </p>
<p>Over the course of Islamic history, Islamic jurists (<em><a href="https://academic.oup.com/ajcl/article-abstract/30/suppl_1/1/2682291?redirectedFrom=PDF">fuqaha’</a></em>) debated at length which of the reports in the Sunna are reliable, and they developed a complex set of rules about how to interpret the Qur’an and the Sunna. They also determined under what conditions it is legitimate to extend the Qur’an’s and the Sunna’s norms to novel cases, and they carefully described the rules of analogical reasoning (<em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/qiyas">qiyas</a></em>) that are to be applied in the process.</p>
<p>In the area of criminal law, Islamic jurists distinguished between different types of crime. Firstly the small number of “statutory crimes” – the so-called <em><a href="http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e757">hadd</a></em> offences, for which severe penalties are mandated by the Qur’an and the Sunna. </p>
<p>Then there was talionic punishment – the principle of a like-for-like punishment, or an eye for an eye, known as <em>qisas</em>, for homicide and cases of infliction of bodily harm, where punishment can be waived by the victim’s family and converted into a fine, or <em>diya</em>. Finally, the area of “discretionary punishment” (<em>ta’zir</em>), which is imposed at the judge’s discretion and should never exceed <em>hadd</em> punishment.</p>
<p>Contemporary debates about Islamic criminal law tend to centre on <em>hadd</em> offences and their punishments, to a large part because of their shock value. There is no easy way to square traditional Islamic criminal law, especially <em>hadd</em> law, with the modern idea of universal human rights. The right to bodily integrity and the right to choose one’s religious belief and sexual orientation are diametrically opposed to the violent <em>hadd</em> punishments for “offences” such as adultery and theft. </p>
<p>In fact, this is why in all but a few Muslim-majority countries, including those that explicitly refer to Sharia law in their constitutions, penal law is not Islamic. The current Egyptian penal code, for example, is <a href="http://theitalianlawjournal.it/data/uploads/4-italj-1-2018/pdf-singoli/1-piccinelli.pdf">influenced by the Italian criminal code</a>, while the Moroccan penal code is inspired by French <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo8930448.html">legislation</a>. </p>
<p>There are exceptions, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and, now, the Taliban’s Afghanistan. But for the Sharia-based, criminal law of these countries to claim an “authentic” Islamic pedigree, it would need to respect some basic principles of Islamic criminal law, anchored in the premodern tradition of Islamic jurisprudence.</p>
<h2>Legal principles</h2>
<p>One such principle is that a person cannot be punished for doing something that is not prohibited by law. When it comes to punishments such as flogging and amputation, this principle was taken very seriously by medieval Muslim jurists. One cannot, they taught, simply extrapolate from one “offence” to another and apply the same punishment – as they stated, “there is no analogical extension of <em>hadd</em> punishments” (<em>la qiyasa fi al-hudud</em>). </p>
<p>As noted above, the group of <em>hadd</em> crimes and punishments is small. Most medieval jurists counted no more than five or six such offences (theft, brigandage, adultery, unfounded accusation of adultery, consumption of alcoholic drinks, and apostassy), defining them narrowly.</p>
<p>Another, equally important principle formulated by medieval Islamic criminal law theorists is that “<em>hadd</em> punishment is to be averted on the strength of legal <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25704002">doubt</a>”. Standards for proof in Islamic criminal law are extremely high. Barring confession by the perpetrator, only male eyewitness testimony is regarded as acceptable evidence – circumstantial evidence is generally not accepted. </p>
<p>Both confessions and testimonies must explicitly name the crime. Mere insinuation, or use of euphemisms, does not suffice. The testimony of a secondary witness – though admissible in other areas of the law, the law of contract for example – is deemed unacceptable in Islamic criminal law. </p>
<p>In sum, premodern Muslim jurists were <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/crime-and-punishment-in-islamic-law/B6DB73FB474660E44B8B1EE27D75770F">reluctant to see</a> the serious penalties of Islamic criminal law implemented. No such reluctance, alas, appears to characterise Mullah Turabi and the Taliban.</p>
<h2>The common good</h2>
<p>Late-medieval Islamic criminal law inserted some loopholes into the fabric of the law for the despotic state to intervene and impose harsh punishment based on political expediency. From roughly the 13th century, “crimes against the state” came to be added to the above-mentioned list of five or six offences punishable by (extreme) corporal <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781315613093-16/public-order-peri-bearman-rudolph-peters?context=ubx&refId=56c387e2-a90f-462e-98a8-b512090087a0">punishment</a>, and many of the restrictions that applied to “discretionary punishment (<em>ta'zir</em>) were lifted.</p>
<p>Past experience suggests the Taliban authorities will be keen to exploit these loopholes. However, it would still be wrong to assume that the Taliban’s approach to Islamic criminal law reflects the true "spirit” of Islamic law.</p>
<p>Of course, none of this distracts from the fundamental tension between Islamic criminal law and the idea of universal human rights. But the principle commonly found in western and other legal systems that punishments are justified as long as they help to create a better society is not alien to Islamic law. </p>
<p>Pre-modern Muslim jurists regularly identified the <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/12932">common good</a> (<em>al-maslaha al-‘amma</em>) as an essential goal (<em>maqsad</em>) of Islamic law. And even Turabi speaks of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-afghanistan-kabul-taliban-22f5107f1dbd19c8605b5b5435a9de54">“deterrence”</a> as the reason why Islamic criminal law should be implemented, rather than claiming that the amputation of hands for theft is God’s revealed law and therefore immune to challenge. </p>
<p>But we are a long way away, it seems, from an open, philosophically informed discussion about how the common good is best achieved, and what this would mean for Islamic criminal law. As Turabi himself <a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-afghanistan-kabul-taliban-22f5107f1dbd19c8605b5b5435a9de54">told the Associated Press</a>: “No one will tell us what our laws should be.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Lange does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Taliban’s punishments are at odds with many basic principles of Islamic law.Christian Lange, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1662542021-08-18T19:44:02Z2021-08-18T19:44:02ZThe Taliban’s conquest of Kabul threatens the lives and safety of girls, women and sexual minorities<p>The world watched in shock as <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/15/taliban-continues-advances-captures-key-city-of-jalalabad">Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, fled the country on Aug. 15</a>. The Taliban occupied Kabul, the country’s capital, and international news channels and social media began to be flooded with devastating pictures of Afghans desperately attempting to escape the impending Taliban regime. </p>
<p>Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis implies a massive blow to human rights globally. The United Nations reports that the country will witness <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1097742">a spike in civilian casualty and extreme forms of violence</a>. More than 80 per cent of Afghans have now been displaced internally due to ongoing conflict, and girls, women and sexual miorities are vulnerable to mass violence. </p>
<p>The Taliban claims a <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/taliban-wants-peaceful-transition-of-power-in-days/article35924768.ece">peaceful transfer of power</a>, but the video of people helplessly clinging on to the wheels of a moving <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/16/afghans-cling-to-plane-defining-image">United States Air Force plane indicate otherwise</a>.</p>
<p>Women’s lives hang in the balance as the Taliban prepares to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/16/kabul-near-standstill-on-day-one-the-talibans-emirate">establish their emirate</a>. </p>
<h2>Threatening</h2>
<p>Women’s rights and freedom are threatened by the Taliban’s acquisition of power. In an open letter, Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi detailed murders and massacres as the Taliban took over the state, describing how they <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/the-taliban-will-ban-all-art-an-afghan-female-filmmakers-plea/a-58877655">bought child brides for the militants and killed women wearing the wrong clothes</a>. </p>
<p>The Taliban is known to oppose women’s education. In one instance, the Taliban sent burial shrouds <a href="https://time.com/6078072/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-girls-education/">as a threat to a girls’ school in the Herat region</a>. And in the Helmand province, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/06/30/you-have-no-right-complain/education-social-restrictions-and-justice-taliban-held">there is no formal education system for girls</a>. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/R1G0KWJoDgI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CBC News interviews Tayiba Nasr, president of the Afghan Socio-Cultural Association, about the plight of Afghan women.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rise in violence</h2>
<p>The unchecked rise of the Taliban poses a grave threat to Afghan women. Under their rule, women have been beaten for the length of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/08/the-talibans-return-is-awful-for-women-in-afghanistan/619765/">their burqa or for painting their nails</a>, and people have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/16/world/execution-by-taliban-crushed-under-wall.html">horrifically executed for their sexual orientation</a>. </p>
<p>During the first phase of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, women were not allowed to travel without a male guardian, and <a href="https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/old-clip-from-syria-shared-as-woman-executed-by-taliban-fact-check">were punished if they were perceived as too independent</a>.</p>
<p>Many remain in fear of being pushed back to an oppressive past. The Taliban has stated that they will protect women’s rights in accordance with <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/17/u-s-evacuation-flights-restart-kabul-taliban-declare-amnesty/8162247002/">Sharia law and within their approved framework</a>. Despite the assurance, one female Afghan journalist in her interview with Euronews said that she fears for the safety of Afghan women as many <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2021/08/16/i-cry-with-my-heart-women-journalists-fear-for-future-under-taliban">female journalists and activists are at the risk of being stoned by the Taliban</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/16/we-see-silence-filled-with-fear-female-afghan-journalists-plead-for-help">Another female journalist in an interview with the <em>Guardian</em></a> said that female journalists are desperately seeking help from embassies before destroying any evidence of their work. Many Afghan women fear <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/aug/15/afghan-womens-defiance-and-despair-i-never-thought-id-have-to-wear-a-burqa-my-identity-will-be-lost">losing their identity</a> under the Taliban. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/taliban-has-not-changed-say-women-facing-subjugation-in-areas-of-afghanistan-under-its-extremist-rule-164760">Taliban 'has not changed,' say women facing subjugation in areas of Afghanistan under its extremist rule</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The translation of this promise looks very different for women. An Afghan woman in Kabul shared her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/15/an-afghan-woman-in-kabul-now-i-have-to-burn-everything-i-achieved">ordeal of hiding her identification cards and diplomas</a>, fearing what would happen to her if they were found.</p>
<p>In an interview, an Afghani female judge recounted how <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/afghan-women-judges-fear-execution-1.6143010">the Taliban views female judges as infidels</a>. Many <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/15/media/journalists-at-risk-in-afghanistan/index.html">journalists and women who made public appearances</a> are also at risk of persecution by the Taliban. </p>
<p>If the Taliban were to reform, it would require shedding their core fundamentalism and misogyny towards women, which is very difficult as their interpretation of woman’s duties equates traditional feminine roles.</p>
<p>Article 27 of the <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/b0d5f4c1f4b8102041256739003e6366/ffcb180d4e99cb26c12563cd0051bbd9">Geneva Convention</a> calls for protecting women from sexual violence. Afghan women are presently at risk of sexual slavery. According to international news, in July 2021, <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/world-news-talban-terror-are-afghan-women-at-risk-of-sexual-enslavement/391630">Taliban officials asked local religious leaders to provide them with the names of girls over 15 and widows under 45 years of age to be married to the fighters</a>. </p>
<p>The Taliban’s rigid interpretation of Sharia law categorically targets and executes sexual minorities. Gay Afghan author Nemat Sadat cautions about the dehumanization of queer people, warning that under the Taliban <a href="https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/17/afghanistan-taliban-lgbt/">they can be sentenced to death for their identity</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-world-must-not-look-away-as-the-taliban-sexually-enslaves-women-and-girls-165426">The world must not look away as the Taliban sexually enslaves women and girls</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Recent developments</h2>
<p>It is important to recognize that the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan is not a new development. Afghanistan has been stuck in a humanitarian crisis with decades of constant warfare and oppressive militant regime.</p>
<p>The international community needs to protect Afghan women and sexual minorities from war crimes and sexual violence. The conversation needs to change from protecting women’s honour to enabling them to protect their bodily autonomy — safety from harm is a basic human right.</p>
<p>There is an urgent need to ensure that gender-based violence does not take precedence in Afghanistan. Canada’s <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/policy-politique.aspx?lang=eng">Feminist International Assistance Policy</a> can play a significant role to that end.</p>
<p>Feminist organizations need to mobilize their financial resources to help Afghan men, women and sexual minorities escaping violence. Apart from helping Afghan refugees with secure accommodations, humanitarian organizations need to consult Afghan women’s organizations and bring them on board to design strategies that will protect their rights and bodily autonomy. </p>
<p>Scholars have criticized Canada’s role in Afghanistan in the past as means to elevate its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2019.1640122">profile in the international community than focusing on sustainable development and peacebuilding</a>. Canada’s refusal to legitimize the Taliban government and the commitment to work alongside the U.S. and the United Kingdom must lead to honest engagement to ensure the safety of Afghans. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416838/original/file-20210818-17-1ua9gfi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men and a woman in a hijab preparing to board a bus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416838/original/file-20210818-17-1ua9gfi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416838/original/file-20210818-17-1ua9gfi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416838/original/file-20210818-17-1ua9gfi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416838/original/file-20210818-17-1ua9gfi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416838/original/file-20210818-17-1ua9gfi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416838/original/file-20210818-17-1ua9gfi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416838/original/file-20210818-17-1ua9gfi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Refugees from Afghanistan board a bus after being processed at Pearson Airport in Toronto, Ont., on Aug. 17 after arriving indirectly from Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Policy recommendations</h2>
<p>As a Ph.D. student whose work examines gender, humanitarian assistance and international development, I propose the following policy actions for Canada and other donor countries: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Support and collaborate with local stakeholders to ensure that the rights of women and girls, including their access to education and employment opportunities, are safeguarded under the Taliban. </p></li>
<li><p>Support organizations that are aiding women and sexual minorities, displaced groups and vulnerable ethnic minorities, and helping them relocate.</p></li>
<li><p>Collaborate with the UN and local organizations to pursue justice for sexual violence survivors.</p></li>
<li><p>Ensure the safety of members of marginalized groups and offer them institutional protection. </p></li>
<li><p>Provide urgent humanitarian aid to the civilians. Create opportunities for human rights organizations to participate in aid distribution.</p></li>
<li><p>Create opportunities for Afghani women to negotiate and design peacebuilding efforts. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Without sustained efforts from international organizations, Afghanistan will be far from reaching gender equality. In the absence of a strong policy framework, we will witness history repeating itself again — the lives of women and sexual minorities hang in the balance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deeplina Banerjee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Taliban’s recent conquest of Kabul signifies their seizure of power. This threatens the rights of girls, women and sexual minorities to freedom from harm and access to opportunities.Deeplina Banerjee, PhD Student, Gender, Sexuality and Women Studies, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1456422020-09-16T11:57:31Z2020-09-16T11:57:31ZWill the UK’s sharia councils struggle to meet the challenge of Covid divorces?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358347/original/file-20200916-20-1bmjn8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5856%2C3919&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sharia councils across the UK could be facing a potentially significant rise in their workload as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and many don’t have the resources to cope. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-divorces-may-spike-after-covid-19-according-divorce-lawyer-2020-7?r=US&IR=T">predicted rise in divorce rates</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-53014211">reported increase</a> in cases of domestic violence associated with lockdown measures will touch Muslim relationships just like any others. But many sharia council services are run on a voluntary basis with little funding, so it might not be possible to process all the cases on the horizon. </p>
<p>Sharia councils have operated in Britain since the 1980s but other religious tribunals, such as Christian <a href="https://lawlibguides.usc.edu/c.php?g=777451&p=5590367">ecclesiastical courts</a> and Jewish <a href="https://www.theus.org.uk/article/about-london-beth-din">batei din</a> date back much further. Each has evolved to serve specific purposes within their respective faith groups. Sharia councils are used by Muslims in Britain to seek advice, manage their affairs, and settle their disputes in accordance with Islamic principles found in the Qur'an (Holy Book) and Sunnah (prophetic example).</p>
<p>The first <a href="https://www.islamic-sharia.org/">sharia council</a> was established in 1982 with the objective of guiding Muslims in managing their personal affairs and settling their matrimonial problems. Over the past four decades, other sharia councils were established, often growing out of mosques and Islamic centres. Some continue to operate from there while others have moved on to running separate offices. </p>
<p>The number of sharia councils in Britain is unclear. One <a href="https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/law/An_exploratory_study_of_Shariah_councils_in_England_with_respect_to_family_law_.pdf">mapping exercise</a> puts the figure at 30 while <a href="http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/sharia-courts-should-not-be-recognised-under-the-arbitration-act/">another estimates 85</a>.</p>
<h2>How sharia councils work</h2>
<p>A sharia council is usually run by a panel of scholars. The administration is overseen by volunteers from the community.</p>
<p>Most sharia councils report that their services are open to all Muslims irrespective of their background although, in practice, ethnic diversity and different schools of thought mean that different courts interpret Islamic law in different ways.</p>
<p>Despite initially aiming to provide more variety in their services, sharia councils mainly work on settling marital disputes and granting Islamic divorce to Muslim women when their husband fails to pronounce a <a href="https://www.afglaw.co.uk/islamic-divorce-and-civil-divorce/">unilateral divorce</a> or refuses to consent to the wife’s request for divorce.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman sits on a bench." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357963/original/file-20200914-18-cmk68z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C21%2C3575%2C2374&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357963/original/file-20200914-18-cmk68z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357963/original/file-20200914-18-cmk68z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357963/original/file-20200914-18-cmk68z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357963/original/file-20200914-18-cmk68z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357963/original/file-20200914-18-cmk68z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357963/original/file-20200914-18-cmk68z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many women rely on sharia councils to help them leave unhappy marriages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Depending on the sharia council, one or more meetings are arranged to obtain testimonies and information from the person applying for a divorce, as well as with the other people involved in the case. Sometimes meetings are arranged to attempt reconciliation between the couple. The final decision is usually taken in an independent meeting between the council scholars, who then issue the Islamic divorce.</p>
<p>This Islamic divorce is not an alternative to civil divorce. <a href="https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/law/An_exploratory_study_of_Shariah_councils_in_England_with_respect_to_family_law_.pdf">Research shows</a> that where a couple have had an English marriage, the sharia council usually requires or encourages them to seek a dissolution of their civil marriage as well.</p>
<p>Sharia councils have been widely criticised and there is <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/678478/6.4152_HO_CPFG_Report_into_Sharia_Law_in_the_UK_WEB.pdf">documented evidence</a> of bad practice and discrimination against women. Sometimes, men’s testimonies are privileged over women’s and there have been cases in which women have been forced into a process of reconciliation against their wishes. </p>
<p>However, <a href="http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/8418/1/Parveen18PhD.pdf">academic research</a> into sharia councils tells us that despite the criticisms and the many shortcomings of sharia councils, the mechanisms still provide an important service to Muslim communities. They are particularly useful for Muslim women who want to terminate marriages. Without the intervention of a council, some women might have no other way to leave their marriages. </p>
<h2>COVID divorce</h2>
<p>Now these councils need to contend with the fallout of the global pandemic. One of the consequences of lockdown is expected to be a rise in divorce rates. “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/covid-divorce-pandemic-1.5635016">Covid divorce</a>”, as some have labelled it, is a trend that was first observed <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1185583.shtml">in China</a>, where the rate of separations was seen to have steadily increased since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan. </p>
<p>In the UK, there have been <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-law-firm-sees-40-rise-in-divorce-inquiries-during-uk-lockdown-11999307">reports of</a> similar trends based on testimonies from lawyers and law firms. Legal professionals have also warned about the probability of significant delays in divorce proceedings and of future case overload as divorce applications increase.</p>
<p>A couple of months into the national lockdown in England, one prominent sharia council, the Islamic Council of Europe (ICE), reported a more than 280% increase in its cases since April, and had to expand its team to meet the extra demand.</p>
<p>A number of sharia councils are likely to struggle to adapt to this sudden increase in workload, particularly as most of these institutions are known to have limited resources in terms of space, personnel and funds. In addition to the fees they charge to cover administrative expenses, most sharia councils are known to rely on community donations to cover the expenses for applicants who cannot otherwise afford their services.</p>
<p>Sharia councils are an important <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2018/06/how-far-do-faith-communities-facilitate-justice-for-victims-of-domestic-violence/">community mechanism</a> for victims and survivors of domestic and gender-based violence, helping them put an end to abusive relationships. With <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-53014211">emerging evidence</a> highlighting the increase in cases of domestic violence, the need for these services is even more evident. However, with their limited resources and case overload, applicants could witness delays of several months before they see their cases resolved.</p>
<p>If the better-known sharia councils become overloaded with enquiries and cases, there is also the risk that people will seek help from less credible organisations with less oversight and transparency, which leaves much room for problematic practices and abuse of power. It would be very unfortunate to see Muslim women and couples more generally struggling in unsuccessful relationships with limited support and options.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fouzia Azzouz receives funding from the Algerian ministry of higher education.</span></em></p>Divorce rates are reportedly on the rise but these religious councils largely run on volunteer labour.Fouzia Azzouz, PhD Candidate in Politics, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1407452020-06-22T14:32:54Z2020-06-22T14:32:54ZWhy South Africa has a keen interest in extremist violence in northern Mozambique<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342951/original/file-20200619-43225-4yacj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Mozambican military has proven to be inept at stopping atrocities by extremist insurgents in the Cabo Delgado province.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Antonio Silva</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A growing insurgency in the northern parts of Mozambique has caught the attention of conflict analysts and observers worldwide. There is now even a possibility that the South African National Defence Force <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/jihadist-insurgency-crisis-could-spill-over-into-kzn-warn-analysts-48747883">might become involved</a> in the most northern Cabo Delgado province, with a view to ending the deadly violence and <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/opinion/2020/04/09/op-ed-mozambique-islamist-militants-continue-attacks-in-cabo-delgado/">litany of atrocities</a>, abductions and destruction of infrastructure.</p>
<p>Should the South African government decide to send in its military, the main aim would be to focus on the violent activities of an extremist and militant Islamic group, <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2020/02/12/Mozambique-Cabo-Delgado-militancy-Islamic-State-Al-Shabab">Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jammah</a>. It is also locally known as Al Shabaab, even though it has no connections with the Somali movement of the same name. The group aims to <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2020/02/12/Mozambique-Cabo-Delgado-militancy-Islamic-State-Al-Shabab">establish its own mosques and madrassas</a> to enhance the spread of its radical dogma.</p>
<p>Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jammah started as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/mozambiques-own-version-of-boko-haram-is-tightening-its-deadly-grip-98087">religious sect which turned into a guerrilla group</a>. Initially its goal was to impose <a href="https://theconversation.com/harsh-punishments-under-sharia-are-modern-interpretations-of-an-ancient-tradition-115211">Sharia law</a> (Islamic law) in Cabo Delgado. It rejected the state’s schooling, health system and laws, which resulted in much tension in the province. Some analysts argue that the movement is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44320531">motivated more by greed</a> than by dogma or grievance: that it is making millions of dollars a week through criminal activities relating to mining, logging, poaching and contraband.</p>
<p>Be that as it may, many of its members appear to be socio-economically marginalised young people without a proper education and formal employment. They have been joined by young immigrants in a similar marginalised position. It is estimated that the movement’s members are <a href="https://theconversation.com/mozambiques-own-version-of-boko-haram-is-tightening-its-deadly-grip-98087">organised in tens of small cells</a> along the coast of northern Mozambique.</p>
<p>There is rightly widespread concern over these developments. Should South Africa – and specifically its defence force – get involved, it would certainly be venturing into a highly violent and complex landscape, requiring a counter-terrorism type of operations. </p>
<p>Such operations are always highly challenging. Countering terrorist and insurgent forces in Mozambique could be as challenging as the protracted operations <a href="https://www.inonafrica.com/2015/02/03/boko-haram-and-al-shabaab-comparable-threats-to-african-security/">against Boko Haram and Al Shabaab</a>, the militant Islamist sects that operate predominantly in Nigeria and Somalia, destabilising large areas with their terror campaigns.</p>
<p>Why should there be serious concern over the situation in Mozambique? </p>
<p>Mozambique borders Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and eSwatini. Four of these six countries are landlocked, and hence depend on <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/mozambique/overview">Mozambique as a gateway to global markets</a>. Events in Cabo Delgado could thus threaten regional stability. </p>
<p>Even though <a href="https://clubofmozambique.com/news/mozambique-insurgents-leave-mocimboa-da-praia-after-1-day-occupation-which-showed-local-support-by-joseph-hanlon-156346/">Mocímboa da Praia</a>, which is regarded as the headquarters of the extremists, is about 2,500km from South Africa, the group nevertheless poses a challenge to the country too. After all, Mozambique has strong economic ties with South Africa as the region’s economic engine. Regional stability is certainly in the interest of South Africa.</p>
<p>From a South African standpoint, four main issues stand out. These are: the danger of the spread of Islamist extremism so close to home; the strategic importance of the area under siege; weakness of Mozambican security forces; and combating organised crime. </p>
<h2>Violent extremism</h2>
<p>This is the first case of violent extremism of this kind in southern Africa. It is also the first manifestation of a militant movement which is <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/mozambique-admits-presence-isil-affiliated-fighters-200424200048073.html">associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria</a>, and the notion of a <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/is-islamic-state-taking-charge-of-mozambiques-jihadist-insurgency">jihadist insurgency</a>.</p>
<p>Until recently, acts of terror conducted by extremists in southern Africa were confined to Tanzania and Zanzibar. </p>
<p>The death toll and displacements of Mozambican locals in Cabo Delgado are difficult to verify. But reports indicate that <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/jihadist-insurgency-crisis-could-spill-over-into-kzn-warn-analysts-48747883">more than 1,000 people have died</a> and <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/mozambique/mozambique-deteriorating-humanitarian-situation-cabo-delgado-province-short-note">about two million are affected</a> by the crisis overall.</p>
<p>Secondly, in recent years massive <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/gas-rich-mozambique-headed-disaster-200223112556449.html">offshore natural gas deposits</a> have been identified, drawing some of the world’s biggest energy players. Offshore exploration in the Cabo Delgado area is among Africa’s three largest liquid natural gas projects. </p>
<p>Investments of billions of dollars have already been made, but an escalation of violence is <a href="https://www.inonafrica.com/2020/06/02/mozambiques-energy-sector-caught-in-southern-africas-first-terrorist-insurgency/">putting the future of these investments at risk</a>.</p>
<p>These projects could be of major importance to poverty alleviation in the country. Poverty affects most of those in rural areas with low levels of formal education. <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/mozambique/overview">Economic activity in Mozambique</a> has improved in recent years and has the potential to strengthen in the foreseeable future. But much will depend on the megaprojects in Cabo Delgado, debt restructuring, COVID-19, macroeconomic stability and improved political and economic governance, among other key factors. </p>
<p>For decades, South Africa has experienced an illegal influx of Mozambicans due to development challenges in their country. Thus, economic, political and social development in Mozambique are of the utmost importance to South Africa, which is battling massive poverty and unemployment of its own.</p>
<p>Although exploration in Mozambique is offshore, support facilities are onshore and most vulnerable to attacks. The foreign companies with their massive investments feel threatened, especially now that <a href="https://www.inonafrica.com/2020/06/02/mozambiques-energy-sector-caught-in-southern-africas-first-terrorist-insurgency/">final investment decisions</a> have to be taken. </p>
<p>South Africa has another interest in these developments. The South African energy and chemical multinational <a href="https://www.sasol.com/growing-our-upstream-base-mozambique">Sasol</a> has invested heavily in gas exploration projects since 2014. </p>
<p>The arrival of foreign companies has led to deep discontent among local people who are deeply aggrieved by their activities. They had to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/gas-rich-mozambique-headed-disaster-200223112556449.html">relocate to make way</a> for the infrastructure development, amid complaints about the compensation they received. They’re also aggrieved that they have been resettled inshore, away from the coastal fishing areas. </p>
<p>These factors further complicate security challenges in the <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2020/02/12/Mozambique-Cabo-Delgado-militancy-Islamic-State-Al-Shabab">very delicate social landscape</a>. Moreover, the insurgents can easily exploit local grievances as matters play into their hands.</p>
<p>The Mozambican military and police have proven to be no match for the militants. They have been unable to prevent them from taking the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-03-26-islamist-insurgents-capture-second-town-in-northern-mozambique-within-48-hours/#gsc.tab=0">northern strategic town of Mocímboa de Praia</a>, as well as invading a town near Quissanga.</p>
<p>To counter the growing insurgency, the Mozambican government has contracted <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-11-29-wagner-private-military-force-licks-wounds-in-northern-mozambique/#gsc.tab=0">the Wagner group</a>, a private Russian military company, to assist government forces. But the situation appears to have gone from <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/is-islamic-state-taking-charge-of-mozambiques-jihadist-insurgency">bad to worse</a>.</p>
<p>A South African security group, the <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/private-military-contractors-appear-to-be-active-in-mozambique/">Dyck Advisory Group</a>, was also allegedly assisting the Mozambican government.</p>
<p>A fourth cause for concern over dynamics in the Cabo Delgado province relates to organised crime. The area is a major conduit for <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2018-06-27-research-paper-heroin-coast-pdf.pdf">smuggling drugs and other contraband</a>. The volume of heroin produced and shipped from Afghanistan along a network of routes, via East and southern Africa, has increased considerably in recent years. </p>
<p>Cabo Delgado is a key point for smuggling drugs, wildlife, timber, gems and gold. The insurgency makes it more difficult to enforce the law in the province.</p>
<h2>No choice</h2>
<p>Operations aimed at countering Islamist extremists tend to continue for many years. Success at curbing violent terrorist attacks requires careful and long term responses.</p>
<p>Ideally, these should comprise a mixed set of interventions, including social reform, economic development and varying degrees of military force.</p>
<p>South African political involvement is now almost inevitable as the Southern African Development Community <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-05-20-leaders-commit-sadc-to-helping-mozambique-fight-jihadist-insurgency/#gsc.tab=0">has already undertaken to help Mozambique</a> in its fight against the insurgency. This makes it highly likely that South Africa’s military forces will somehow get involved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140745/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theo Neethling receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>Should South Africa’s military get involved, it would be venturing into a highly violent and complex landscape, requiring a counter-terrorism type of operations.Theo Neethling, Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Studies and Governance, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1198512019-07-04T15:09:40Z2019-07-04T15:09:40ZHow Senegal keeps unique balance between religion and a secular state<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282664/original/file-20190704-51284-14xgfda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Senegalese nun prays during a service at the St. Peters church in Dakar, Senegal.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 1 May this year the principal of a catholic high school in Dakar sent out an email informing parents that students would only, as of next year, be allowed to wear</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the usual uniform, with no headwear either for girls or boys. This sparked lively controversy over headscarves in Senegalese catholic schools. Some people openly voiced support and others condemnation for the stance taken by the sisters of Saint-Joseph de Cluny.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The controversy raised fundamental questions about the Senegalese model of secularism.</p>
<p>There’s no single model to secularism. At its core, however, is that religious and governmental institutions are separated. These institutions can be kept distinct in various ways, depending on the history of their relationship. </p>
<p>One of the reasons secularism is a sensitive issue is that some of its proponents, wishing to exclude religion from the public sphere, uphold it as a value, polarising public opinion. Yet secularism is <a href="https://www.persee.fr/doc/spira_0994-3722_2007_num_39_1_1251">not an ideological value</a>. Rather it’s a political principle. </p>
<p>Yet some secularists want to enforce secularism with bans in the same way that Islamists practice Sharia law. Common to both of these prohibitionist attitudes is that they infringe our most basic human rights: the right to education for female students wearing hijabs in France or for female students – period – in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>This is because secularism has been made sacred. It has been elevated to the status of a value used to both allow and prohibit. But secularism is not sacred. It is a political choice.</p>
<h2>Secularism and right to education</h2>
<p>There are several different ways to understand secularism at school. This depends on the history of relations between school institutions (both public and private) and the State, which protects the fundamental, universal right to education. A right which, as we can see, has <a href="https://www.jeuneafrique.com/771857/societe/senegal-linterdiction-du-voile-par-linstitution-sainte-jeanne-darc-de-dakar-fait-polemique/">elicited little passionate debate</a>.</p>
<p>But a school’s mission is to educate without discrimination. It has the duty to accept students, no matter how they choose to dress, as long as they show respect for human dignity.</p>
<p>In reality, secularism requires public and private schools funded by the State (and therefore by the people) to provide quality education to all students. This should also be in an equitable fashion, regardless of the religion they do, or do not, practice. This is not only a question of secularism, but also of democracy.</p>
<h2>When secularism impedes freedom</h2>
<p>This is why laïcité, the French concept of secularism, <a href="https://www.jeuneafrique.com/528342/societe/en-afrique-la-laicite-a-la-croisee-des-chemins/">which has influenced many African countries, Senegal included</a>, could not legally target hijabs.</p>
<p>French schools exclude students wearing ‘conspicuous religious symbols’ in accordance with a 2004 law. Bikramjit Singh, a young high school student, was <a href="https://www.la-croix.com/Urbi-et-Orbi/Actualite/Monde/La-France-epinglee-a-l-ONU-sur-l-interdiction-du-turban-sikh-sur-les-photos-d-identite-2012-01-12-756978">excluded</a> from his school for refusing to remove his turban. But the UN Human Rights Committee <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/FR/HRBodies/CCPR/Pages/CCPRIndex.aspx">found</a> that the French government’s legitimate attachment to the principle of secularism was not limitless. It could not, therefore, justify excluding students on the basis of their faith – in other words, for wearing religious symbols.</p>
<p>The Human Rights Committee also called on the French government to <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/religions/article/2018/10/23/une-instance-de-l-onu-demande-a-la-france-de-reviser-sa-loi-contre-le-voile-integral_5373395_1653130.html">revise its legislation against the full-face veil</a>.</p>
<p>Several academic authorities and scientific reports by a <a href="https://vfouka.people.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj4871/f/abdelgadirfoukajan2019.pdf">team of researchers</a> have shown that this ban has had real, lasting, stigmatising and detrimental effects on the independence, emancipation and integration of young Muslim women.</p>
<h2>Senegalese secularism</h2>
<p>Senegal is a secular State with a predominantly Muslim population, and a democratic regime with a <a href="https://www.globalpartnership.org/fr/blog/la-societe-civile-senegalaise-obtient-un-meilleur-siege-la-table-de-leducation">remarkably strong civil society</a>. This sets it apart from historically Christian countries, where the fight for secularism was linked with more democracy. It also differs from other Muslim countries where secularism was favoured by authoritarian regimes.</p>
<p>In Senegal, religious institutions and the State maintain an <a href="https://www.cairn.info/la-charia-aujourd-hui--9782707169969-page-209.htm">ambivalent relationship</a>. This means secularism can be used as a political instrument for the social control of religion. It could be said that this is the exact opposite of secularism in Europe, where religion imposed its views and rules for centuries. It was gradually excluded from the arts, science, politics, law and, today, culture. </p>
<p>It is from this perspective that we can talk about the political power of religion and its institutionalisation. In Islamic countries, religion has been embodied only by various religious bodies in the service of political power. The exception is Shia clergy and Islamic brotherhoods.</p>
<p>In Senegal, religious orders grew independently from the State and never saw themselves as political institutions. Religious and political authorities have, therefore, benefited from each other, never seeking to replace one another.</p>
<p>Because of this socio-historical background, and aside from its relationship with France, Senegal is a religious country with a secular State. In contrast, the US has a different brand of secularism. It does not reject the social, cultural and even political influence of religion.</p>
<p>Senegalese secularism stands midway between the French and American models. Political secularism in Senegal includes religion in the governing of the country: religious and anti-religious lobbies try to influence the government, without ever threatening the nation’s ability to live together as a community.</p>
<h2>Senegalese family law</h2>
<p>The country’s family law was developed in consultation with religious guides. This in no way undermines its secularism in which political and religious institutions remain separate.</p>
<p>As long as religious figures contribute to developing the laws of the country as part of a democratic framework, reasonable secularism is not under threat. It would not be secular, however, to systematically entrust political decision-making to a particular religious order. But the country’s family law was established by the Senegalese legislature, which can also change it as it sees fit. And, every citizen, religious or not, is free to try and persuade it to do so.</p>
<p>Secularisation is not the loss of religious influence in society, but the loss of religious certainty. In other words, it was by no means certain that the Senegalese family law would align with values held by Muslims, Christians and Tiedos (historically, warriors from the ancient West-African kingdoms, with traditional beliefs), and with secularism.</p>
<p>If the reverse were true, secularism would become a religious value, like atheism and a-religiosity. Then both religious and secular fundamentalist values would inevitably clash and “religious wars” would be fought in the name of various gods – including Secularism.</p>
<p>Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en/">Fast ForWord</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachid Id Yassine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Neither French nor American, Senegalese secularism stands midway between these two modelsRachid Id Yassine, Maître de conférences en sciences sociales, Université Gaston BergerLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1153522019-04-16T10:45:52Z2019-04-16T10:45:52ZBrunei wants to punish gay sex with death by stoning – can boycotts stop it?<p>The sultan of Brunei has been on the throne for 52 years, making him the second-longest reigning monarch in the world, after Queen Elizabeth II. </p>
<p>In Brunei – a rather traditional, deeply Muslim Southeast Asian country – the sultan is known for leading a decadent life. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/07/prince-jefri-201107">Vanity Fair</a> once dubbed Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and his brother, Prince Jefri Bolkiah, “constant companions in hedonism.” They spend lavishly on luxury cars, yachts and real estate, and according to the magazine, “allegedly sent emissaries to comb the globe for the sexiest women they could find in order to create a harem the likes of which the world had never known.” </p>
<p>Now, Brunei’s sultan appears to have found religion. </p>
<p>He has implemented a harsh interpretation of Sharia – Islamic law – in his country, taking aim at LGBT people, women and even children with some of the world’s harshest penalties for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/world/asia/brunei-stoning-gay-sex.html?module=inline">homosexual conduct</a>. </p>
<p>Under Brunei’s new laws, gay sex and adultery can result in death by stoning, and having an abortion is punishable by public flogging. Dressing in clothing associated with a different sex may <a href="http://www.agc.gov.bn/AGC%20Images/LAWS/Gazette_PDF/2013/EN/S069.pdf">incur</a> a fine and imprisonment up to three months. Younger children can be <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/03/brunei-new-penal-code-imposes-maiming-stoning">whipped</a> for these offenses.</p>
<h2>Diversion from economic woes</h2>
<p>These laws represent serious breaches of international human rights law, my <a href="https://paulagerber.com/">field of academic expertise</a>. </p>
<p>Thirty-six countries – including the United States, United Kingdom, Argentina and Australia – recently <a href="https://international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/human_rights-droits_homme/2019-04-13-erc-cde.aspx?lang=eng">issued a joint statement</a> expressing “profound dismay” at Brunei’s penal code, which the United Nations has deemed “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47906070">cruel and unusual</a>.”</p>
<p>Why is Brunei’s sultan suddenly so keen to enforce Sharia across this island nation of 430,000?</p>
<p>One of the main reasons may be plunging global oil prices. For the first time, the oil-rich nation of Brunei is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d8e074fe-80e6-11e7-a4ce-15b2513cb3ff">grappling with economic crisis</a>. </p>
<p>Other countries have similarly <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/11/21/gambia-life-sentence-aggravated-homosexuality">whipped up hatred against LGBT people</a> to distract the public’s attention from economic crisis or corruption allegations. </p>
<p>The sultan may also be seeking to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/09/asia/brunei-sultan-intl/index.html">rehabilitate his reputation</a> as a “party boy.” </p>
<p>“This is obviously not coming from a place of religious devotion, since the sultan himself is in violation of every single rule of Sharia you could possibly imagine,” religious scholar Reza Aslan <a href="https://nypost.com/2014/05/10/inside-the-wacky-sex-obsessed-world-of-brunei/">told the New York Post</a> in 2014, when the sultan first flagged his intention to impose strict Islamic law in Brunei.</p>
<p>Perhaps the Sultan thinks that implementing Sharia will enable him to leave a religious legacy that outweighs his decades of very public excess and indulgence.</p>
<h2>Do boycotts work?</h2>
<p>As a way of trying to get the Sultan to change his mind about imposing these harsh penalties within Brunei, many <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/george-clooney-leads-celebrity-boycott-of-brunei-linked-hotels-over-anti-lgbtq-laws/">celebrities</a> and gay rights advocates are calling for boycotts of the sultan’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/world/asia/brunei-hotel-boycotts.html">international hotels</a> and of <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/global-travel-firm-boycotts-royal-brunei/news-story/ab92e4f28a66c1254f8fd077eee57143">Royal Brunei Airlines</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1113177461276082177"}"></div></p>
<p>But evidence suggests that boycotts are <a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en_au/article/kzdmvv/brunei-sultan-lgbt-boycott">not the most effective way to influence foreign governments</a>. </p>
<p>For one, they can cause the offending government to harden its position to show it will not give in to foreign pressure. That can make it harder to work collaboratively with leaders of that country to actually improve the situation.</p>
<p>That’s what happened in Uganda in 2014, when President Yoweri Museveni introduced some of the word’s toughest <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/24/uganda-president-signs-anti-gay-laws">anti-gay laws</a>.</p>
<p>“I advise friends from the West not to make this an issue, because if they make it an issue the more they will lose,” he said. “Outsiders cannot dictate to us. This is our country.”</p>
<p>This risk is compounded by the evident double standard of an international boycott of Brunei and the sultan’s businesses. Other countries that impose the <a href="https://ilga.org/downloads/ILGA_State_Sponsored_Homophobia_2019.pdf">death penalty</a> for same-sex sexual conduct – including Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia – are not subjected to similar global condemnation.</p>
<h2>Who can stop the sultan?</h2>
<p>The United Nations may stand a better chance of curbing Brunei’s behavior. </p>
<p>Brunei’s human rights record will be reviewed by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council next month, as part of a regular assessment called the Universal Periodic Review – a relatively new process <a href="https://www.ibanet.org/Human_Rights_Institute/HRI_Publications/SOGIESC-at-UPR.aspx">described by the International Bar Association</a> as “the most progressive arena for the protection of the LGBTI community internationally.” </p>
<p>Though the Universal Periodic Review has no power to enforce its recommendations, it has <a href="http://nyujilp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/45.1-Saunders.pdf">shown some success</a> in advancing human rights in U.N. member countries. Its method is to foster dialogue with and between governments and civil society, create a plan for improving rights and closely monitoring progress.</p>
<p>Brunei’s allies and neighbors are also well placed to put pressure on the sultan. </p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11558-016-9264-x">Research</a> has found that if a state is criticized by one of its strategic partners, it is more likely to accept that criticism than if it comes from a state with which it has fewer ties. </p>
<p>Brunei is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, a voluntary association of 53 sovereign states, most of them former British colonies. <a href="http://thecommonwealth.org/chogm">Its biannual Heads of Government Meeting</a>, set to take place in Rwanda next year, is a potential forum for meaningful dialogue about the state of LGBTQ rights across the Commonwealth of Nations, since Brunei is one of 35 Commonwealth countries that <a href="https://antigaylaws.org/commonwealth/">still criminalize consensual same-sex sexual conduct</a>. </p>
<p>If negotiations with Brunei are unsuccessful, the Commonwealth of Nations can take the powerful step of <a href="http://www.commonwealthofnations.org/commonwealth/commonwealth-membership/withdrawals-and-suspension/">suspending</a> its membership. That would prevent Brunei from participating in group meetings and events – including the popular <a href="https://thecgf.com/">Commonwealth Games</a>, which have been described as “sport with a social conscience.” </p>
<p>This step was previously taken in response to grave human rights violations committed by <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-suspended-commonwealth-member-fiji">Fiji</a>, Nigeria, Pakistan and Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>Over 100 LGBTQ and human rights groups from Southeast Asia have also <a href="https://www.queerlapis.com/statement-of-asean-civil-society-organizations-on-the-full-enforcement-of-sharia-law-in-brunei-darussalam/?fbclid=IwAR0gYog-OUYkrZStCzkd0BuAL6Iuxonqtbyl9PcYEULJqc_EkSfWb4z4dV0">called on</a> the Association of South East Asian Nations – ASEAN, a regional intergovernmental organization – to take a hard line against member state Brunei, saying its new laws “legitimize violence.” </p>
<p>But ASEAN’s <a href="https://asean.org/asean-human-rights-declaration/">non-binding 2012 declaration of human rights</a> – which does not explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and contains <a href="https://theconversation.com/asean-human-rights-declaration-a-step-forward-or-a-slide-backwards-10895">imprecise language</a> that significantly dilutes its power – seems unlikely to demand an institutional response. </p>
<h2>Does the sultan mean it?</h2>
<p>There is concern that Brunei’s imposition of hard-line Sharia will embolden its Muslim majority neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia, to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/08/asia/brunei-indonesia-malaysia-islam-intl/index.html">follow suit</a>. </p>
<p>Malaysia already applies Islamic law in some states. Last September, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/03/women-caned-in-malaysia-for-attempting-to-have-lesbian-sex">two women found guilty of attempting to have sex</a> were sentenced to be, and were, caned. </p>
<p>In nearby Indonesia, gay sex is legal in all but one province, but homophobia and transphobia are <a href="https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/anti-lgbt-hysteria-in-indonesia-delays-sexual-violence-bill/#gs.4gflb9">rising nationwide</a>, and recent <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-lgbt-insight/criminal-code-revamp-plan-sends-chill-through-indonesias-lgbt-community-idUSKBN1FT2IO">talk of criminalizing gay sex</a> has LGBTQ Indonesians worried. </p>
<p>Brunei, it’s important to note, has not actually used the death penalty since 1957. </p>
<p>An optimist could conclude that the new laws are mostly symbolic – designed to beef up the sultan’s Islamic credentials and garner favor with other Muslim countries to boost trade and tourism. </p>
<p>That interpretation, however, is unlikely to diminish the fear of the vulnerable minorities targeted by Brunei’s Sharia laws.</p>
<p><em>This article is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-boycotts-against-bruneis-new-anti-gay-laws-wont-be-effective-but-regional-pressure-might-115067">article</a> originally published on April 11, 2019 in The Conversation Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paula Gerber is a Director of Kaleidoscope Human Rights Foundation, a not-for-profit organization working to advance the human rights of LGBTI people in the Asia Pacific region.</span></em></p>Brunei’s new anti-gay Sharia laws are the harshest in the world. Yet few countries have publicly condemned them, and an international boycott could backfire.Paula Gerber, Professor of Human Rights Law, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1150672019-04-11T02:59:36Z2019-04-11T02:59:36ZWhy boycotts against Brunei’s new anti-gay laws won’t be effective, but regional pressure might<p>The sultan of Brunei has been on the throne for 52 years, making him the second-longest reigning monarch in the world, after Queen Elizabeth II. </p>
<p>Until recently the sultan appeared more interested in living a decadent life, rather than a pious one. In 2011, <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/07/prince-jefri-201107">Vanity Fair</a> dubbed Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and his brother, Prince Jefri Bolkiah, “constant companions in hedonism”. They spent lavishly on luxury cars, yachts and real estate, and according to the magazine: </p>
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<p>…allegedly sent emissaries to comb the globe for the sexiest women they could find in order to create a harem the likes of which the world had never known. </p>
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<p>Now, the sultan has introduced Sharia law in his country and taken aim at LGBT people, women and even children with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/world/asia/brunei-stoning-gay-sex.html?module=inline">some of the harshest penalties</a> in the world for gay sex and adultery (death by stoning) and having an abortion (public flogging). In an apparent effort to eradicate transgender identity, dressing in attire associated with a different sex is also <a href="http://www.agc.gov.bn/AGC%20Images/LAWS/Gazette_PDF/2013/EN/S069.pdf">punishable</a> with a fine and imprisonment up to three months. An adolescent who has reached puberty can be <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/03/brunei-new-penal-code-imposes-maiming-stoning">punished as an adult</a> for these offences, while younger children can be whipped. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-sharia-law-and-does-it-fit-with-western-law-31972">Explainer: what is 'sharia law'? And does it fit with Western law?</a>
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<p>Needless to say, these laws amount to serious breaches of international laws relating to human rights, women’s rights and children’s rights.</p>
<h2>Diversion from economic woes</h2>
<p>The big question is why the sultan would do this. One religious scholar <a href="https://nypost.com/2014/05/10/inside-the-wacky-sex-obsessed-world-of-brunei/">observed</a>: </p>
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<p>This is obviously not coming from a place of religious devotion, since the sultan himself is in violation of every single rule of Sharia law you could possibly imagine.</p>
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<p>One of the main reasons may be that plunging oil prices mean that, for the first time, the tiny, oil-rich nation of Brunei (population 430,000) is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d8e074fe-80e6-11e7-a4ce-15b2513cb3ff">grappling with an economic crisis</a>. </p>
<p>Other leaders faced with similar crises or corruption allegations have whipped up hatred against LGBT people in a similar way to distract the public’s attention. This tactic was used by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh in 2014, when he enacted a law that created a new offence of “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/11/21/gambia-life-sentence-aggravated-homosexuality">aggravated homosexuality</a>” that carried a life sentence. </p>
<p>The sultan may also be seeking to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/09/asia/brunei-sultan-intl/index.html">rehabilitate his reputation</a> as a “party boy”, perhaps believing that introducing Sharia law could enable him to leave a religious legacy that will outweigh the decades of excesses that he and his family have indulged in. </p>
<h2>Why boycotts don’t work</h2>
<p>The international community has been swift in its condemnation of Brunei’s new laws. Many outraged <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/george-clooney-leads-celebrity-boycott-of-brunei-linked-hotels-over-anti-lgbtq-laws/">celebrities</a> and gay rights activists have organised boycotts and protests outside hotels owned by the sultan (including the <a href="http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/national-news/queensland-news/brisbane-to-rally-against-anti-lgbti-laws-at-brunei-owned-royal-on-the-park-hotel/180679">Royal on the Park</a> in Brisbane) and <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/global-travel-firm-boycotts-royal-brunei/news-story/ab92e4f28a66c1254f8fd077eee57143">Royal Brunei Airlines</a>. </p>
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<p>But are such boycotts effective? The short answer is <a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en_au/article/kzdmvv/brunei-sultan-lgbt-boycott">no</a>. We should be wary of boycotts for several reasons, including:</p>
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<li> they can cause the government to harden its position to show it will not give in to foreign pressure, making the repeal of such laws even harder to achieve;</li>
<li> the LGBT community can be subjected to a vicious backlash, blamed for bringing economic pressure and shame on the country; and </li>
<li> it can be seen as hypocritical since there are other countries that impose the <a href="https://ilga.org/downloads/ILGA_State_Sponsored_Homophobia_2019.pdf">death penalty</a> for homosexual conduct (Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen and parts of Nigeria and Somalia) and are not subjected to similar international condemnation.</li>
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<h2>What can concerned global citizens do?</h2>
<p>In Australia, for one, people can put pressure on the government to respond strongly to Brunei, <a href="https://dfat.gov.au/geo/brunei-darussalam/pages/brunei-darussalam-country-brief.aspx">a key regional defence and security partner</a>. As I <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-regions-homophobia-turns-deadly-lets-stand-up-for-rights-27067">noted in 2013</a>, when these laws were passed but not yet implemented, Australia has a strong trading relationship with Brunei, which may give it leverage to have some influence. </p>
<p>So far, however, the response from Australia has been muted. Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said in a tweet that <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/death-by-stoning-for-gays-unmarried-couples-in-brunei-20190404-p51aqw.html">Australia has raised its “concerns”</a> with Brunei over the new laws, but she has otherwise been silent on the issue. Prime Minister Scott Morrison <a href="https://qnews.com.au/scott-morrison-must-condemn-bruneis-anti-gay-laws-says-campaigner-peter-tatchell/">has not spoken out </a>about the new laws.</p>
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<p>International organisations can also put pressure on Brunei. For example, Brunei is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, and this body may be able to engage in constructive dialogue with the sultan. The <a href="http://thecommonwealth.org/chogm">Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting</a> (CHOGM), which takes place in Rwanda next year, is a potential forum for such dialogue, not only with Brunei, but also with the other <a href="https://antigaylaws.org/commonwealth/">35 Commonwealth countries that also still criminalise consensual same-sex sexual conduct</a>. </p>
<p>If negotiations with Brunei are unsuccessful, the Commonwealth can also <a href="http://www.commonwealthofnations.org/commonwealth/commonwealth-membership/withdrawals-and-suspension/">suspend</a> a country’s membership – a step it has previously taken in response to grave breaches of human rights in <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-suspended-commonwealth-member-fiji">Fiji</a>, Nigeria, Pakistan and Zimbabwe.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-the-west-be-held-accountable-for-gay-persecution-24624">Should the west be held accountable for gay persecution?</a>
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<p>It would be particularly helpful if the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) took a hard line against Brunei (a member state), but this is unlikely. Although ASEAN adopted a <a href="https://asean.org/asean-human-rights-declaration/">Human Rights Declaration</a> in 2012, it did not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and contains numerous “<a href="https://theconversation.com/asean-human-rights-declaration-a-step-forward-or-a-slide-backwards-10895">weasel words</a>” that significantly dilute its impact. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.queerlapis.com/statement-of-asean-civil-society-organizations-on-the-full-enforcement-of-sharia-law-in-brunei-darussalam/?fbclid=IwAR0gYog-OUYkrZStCzkd0BuAL6Iuxonqtbyl9PcYEULJqc_EkSfWb4z4dV0">ASEAN Civil Society Organisations</a> has urged ASEAN member states to call on Brunei to immediately halt the implementation of Sharia law, saying:</p>
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<p>By adopting conservative views of morality and excessive punishments, Brunei essentially legitimises violence. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But this is likely to fall on deaf ears.</p>
<p>The United Nations also has a role to play. Brunei’s human rights record will be reviewed by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) next month and this provides another opportunity for constructive dialogue. Although the HRC is often perceived as a toothless organisation, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11558-016-9264-x">research</a> has shown that if a state is criticised by one of its strategic partners, it is more likely to accept that criticism than if it comes from a state with fewer ties. </p>
<h2>Could other countries follow suit?</h2>
<p>There are concerns that Brunei’s actions will embolden its Muslim-majority neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, to <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/08/asia/brunei-indonesia-malaysia-islam-intl/index.html">follow suit</a>. </p>
<p>Gay sex is not against the law in Indonesia, with the exception of Aceh province, which has instituted Sharia law. Although homophobia and transphobia have been <a href="https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/anti-lgbt-hysteria-in-indonesia-delays-sexual-violence-bill/#gs.4gflb9">on the rise</a> and there <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-lgbt-insight/criminal-code-revamp-plan-sends-chill-through-indonesias-lgbt-community-idUSKBN1FT2IO">was talk of criminalising gay sex</a> ahead of this month’s elections, it still seems unlikely that Sharia law will be adopted throughout the country. The vast majority of Indonesians – <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2018/09/shariah-is-here-to-stay-in-indonesias-aceh/">88% of the population</a> – continue to consider themselves moderate Muslims.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/michael-kirby-the-rainbow-in-asia-and-the-fight-for-gay-rights-in-our-region-89165">Michael Kirby: the rainbow in Asia and the fight for gay rights in our region</a>
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<p>Malaysia similarly has some states that apply Sharia law. Last September, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/03/women-caned-in-malaysia-for-attempting-to-have-lesbian-sex">two women were found guilty of attempting to have sex</a> in the conservative northeastern state of Terengganu, and were sentenced to be caned six times each. Though Sharia law could potentially spread across the country, Malaysia is one of few countries in the region where <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/democracy-and-human-rights-are-in-retreat-in-south-east-asia-here-s-why-20190405-p51b6b.html?fbclid=IwAR14W4newNvtvDMyR8yeba_FnvML6TAnU367tCnbaaTl4rxUnWuBoqr_Tpk">democracy is getting better, not worse</a>. </p>
<p>It is worth observing that Brunei has not used the death penalty since 1957. An optimist could conclude that the introduction of these new laws is mostly symbolic and designed to beef up the sultan’s Islamic credentials and garner favour with other Islamic countries to boost trade and tourism. </p>
<p>But that does not diminish the legitimate concern the world is expressing for the vulnerable minorities targeted by these laws.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paula Gerber is a Director of Kaleidoscope Human Rights Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation working to advance the human rights of LGBTI people in the Asia Pacific region. </span></em></p>Brunei’s new anti-gay laws have shocked the world. So, why haven’t governments, including Australia’s, taken a stronger stand against the sultan?Paula Gerber, Professor of Human Rights Law, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.