Brunei to Implement Shariah Law, Including Amputations and Stoning By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus

The Sultan of Brunei announced the imposition of the Shariah Penal Code starting April 1, 2014.
Photo Credit: YouTube

Beginning on April 1, the tiny but oil and petroleum-rich nation of Brunei, will be the first eastern Asian country to implement nation-wide the strict penal code of Shariah. This law strictly regulates punishments such as the amputation of limbs for theft, stoning for adultery, and flogging for alcohol consumption, abortion and homosexuality.

Those punishments are referred to as “hudud,” or punishments that are fixed for certain kinds of crimes, ones which are referred to as “claims of Allah.” Under strict Islamic law, the sovereign is required to apply those punishments for the stated crimes whether or not the victim complains.

The Sultan of Brunei, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, is Brunei’s monarch. The Sultan also happens to be the prime minister, as well as the minister of both defense and finance of the tiny nation on the north east coast of the island of Borneo, located in the South China Sea.  Borneo is to the south of the Philippines, and northwest of Australia. Other than its coastline, Brunei is surrounded by Malaysia. Its territory, like that of Malaysia, is non-contiguous.

Brunei has substantial petroleum and natural gas fields. It is ranked fifth in the world for per capita GDP, one ahead of the United States.

Brunei has been Islamic since the 16th Century.  After various invasions, occupations and protectorates, Brunei became a fully sovereign nation in 1984. Brunei is an absolute monarchy with a constitution, but one which the Sultan is able to amend.

The nation’s legal system is largely based on English common law, although it employed various elements of Shariah law especially for family law and civil disputes, and its non-Shariah laws are reviewed to ensure Shariah compliance. As an Islamic country, it is a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Two-thirds of the 440,000 Bruneians are Muslim. Religious education for Muslim Bruneians is already compulsory, and all businesses are required to shut down before sundown on Fridays, in observance of the Muslim sabbath.

In October, the 66 year old Sultan announced that his nation would implement the Shariah Penal Code. He said it should be considered a form of “special guidance” from Allah and its implementation would be remembered as part of the “great history” of Brunei.

“By the grace of Allah, with the coming into effect of this legislation, our duty to Allah is therefore being fulfilled,” the sultan said at a legal conference in Brunei’s capital.

The nation’s top Islamic scholar scolded critics for focusing solely on the amputations, stonings and canings.

Mufti Awang Abdul Aziz explained that there will not be “indiscriminate cutting or stoning or caning.”

In other words, only if one is found guilty of one of the crimes for which those punishments is required, will one be subjected to it. And there were at least initial guarantees that only Muslims will be subject to the Hudud.

WARNING AGAINST CRITICISM OF THE HUDUD OR OF THE SULTAN

Following several months of critical responses from some Bruneians, the Sultan issued a harsh warning to his people last month, through an official statement marking Brunei’s National Day.

Brunei citizens were warned that online criticism of the future imposition of the Shariah penal code and even about the Sultan would get them in a great deal of trouble. The threat was sufficiently broad that it suggested there might be a move to interfere with Internet access unless the criticism stopped.

The threat was posed as a rebuke to “outsiders” who are using the Internet to influence people within Brunei, who in turn criticize and even dare to mock the decisions of the Sultan.

The official statement then quoted the Sultan, declaring that those who criticize and mock the Sultan and his decisions may be the first to experience the new Shariah penal code punishments.

The Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine Sanitized Sharia Abuses by civil trial attorney Baruch C. Cohen (December 2013 edition)

Dear Editor:

The April 2013 edition of the Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine presented an article by Abbas Hadjian entitled: “The Children of Sharia” about how Islamic nations apply civil and Islamic legal traditions differently in matters of child custody and spousal support. The article gave credence and even reverence to Islamic Sharia law and read as if this was just an innocent comparative law course. The article said nothing about how Sharia is a savage and barbaric set of archaic laws that threaten American democratic rule of law.

Shariah Law punishes violators of Islamic law with stonings, executions, amputations, whipings and beatings. Sharia law allows “honor killings,” genital mutilation, pre-teen marriages, polygamy, and divorce & inheritance rules that undercut the standing of women (i.e, testimony from non-Muslims and even Muslim women is given less weight than that of Muslim men). The list of human rights abuses of Sharia go on and on.

How your excellent magazine could turn such a blind eye to such human rights atrocities and sanitize Sharia's abuses as a legitimate set of laws worth studying is beyond me.

ATLAS SHRUGS: VIDEO: SHARIA COURTS IN THE UK

The dehumanization and diminishment of women is universal in the Muslim world -- "you can't go against what Islam says." These sharia courts should be banned in Western nations. They are vicious, misogynistic, and brutal.

A BBC [!] Panorama Documentary goes undercover in one of the 85 sharia courts operating as a parallel legal system in the UK, uncovering the extensive abuse of women, refusal to grant divorces, charging of the woman but not the man for divorce proceedings, and even the taking away of the woman's children, and rulings contrary to British law.

"Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them." (Qur'an 4:34)

I am sure that all the Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. who constantly assure us that only greasy Islamophobes think that that verse actually means beat them are jetting over to Egypt right now, to explain to Mahmoud Al-Denawy how he is getting the wife-beating verse all wrong, wrong, wrong.

"Egyptian Cleric Mahmoud Al-Denawy Instructs European Muslims on Wife Beating," from MEMRI, June 17:

Following are excerpts from a religious call-in show featuring Egyptian cleric Dr. Mahmoud Al-Denawy, which aired on Iqra TV Europe/Africa, on June 17, 2013:

Mahmoud Al-Denawy: Here is an important question from sister Hagar from Norway. She says: What’s the Islamic view on the beating of wives? Non-believers use this point against Islam. May Allah reward you, sister.

Indeed, many people take this as something [with which] to stab Islam and to stab Muslims. They say: Here Islam is calling for the beating of wives. Islam is urging Muslims… There are so many sayings and many misconceptions about this, but they forgot an important thing: Allah says that if there is a problem – or a lady, for example, who is disobedient, she has a bad behavior, for example – the husband should do his best to correct her, to fix this issue, first of all, by admonishing, by leaving her bed. For example, he shouldn’t sleep with her. He should sleep in a separate room, or whatever. And, at the end… Allah says: “Sleep in beds apart, and beat them.”

The issue of beating… First of all, if someone [does it] just for admonishing, or whatever… When it comes to beating, he should never beat her harshly. He should never raise his hand. He should never beat her on her face. But he can use something very simple – like a siwak [dental stick] or something like this pen. The beating should not lead to breaking her arm or a tooth. He should avoid this, because the Prophet urged us and told us that when you beat someone, you should never beat him or her on his or her face. This is because the face is owned by Allah.

What? The rest isn't?

An image from the English Defense League website. This is what they're fighting.

PMW: British Islamist Anjem Choudary: We Reject Human Rights

ELDER OF ZIYON: Video: Islamists in Syria publicly lash two men for marriage too soon after girl's divorce

The Syrian opposition publicly flogged two men in a town in northern Syria this week, according to reports.

Their crime?

In Islamic law, a woman is divorced before she can be remarried (so that there is no doubt as to the parentage of any children she has - this was taken from Jewish law but claimed by Muslims to be one of their innovations.)

A father in Syria married his daughter to a young man before the three months were complete.

So the Islamists who control the town gave both the father and the groom a public flogging, apparently with electrical wire, after reading their verdict.

Hamas prison filled with women who had sex outside marriage

From Al Monitor:

At Gaza’s only all-female prison located in the central city, dozens of detained women from across the coastal enclave remain under intense security, irrespective of the crime.

For many people in Gaza, crimes committed by women are rarely heard of due to the conservative nature of Gazan society. Families of female convicts usually don’t disclose their whereabouts, and even lie about it.

The head of the prison, Jazya Abu Mousa, said that this year has witnessed the largest number of female prisoners since she began working there in 2007.

“The number changes from time to time as most of the prisoners here are detained and not sentenced,” Abu Mousa said.

Criminals in the prison are divided into three categories: thieves, security convicts of crimes often related to cooperating with the Israeli occupation and "moral" convicts, which includes prostitution or sexual relations without marriage. This final category holds the largest number of prisoners.

But don't worry - they are being rehabilitated:

The prison head said she is proud of most of the prisoners, as she senses a willingness among them to change. The prison administration focuses on raising religious awareness among the prisoners so they won’t return to crime after their release, said Abu Moussa.

“Besides giving them traditional training like handicrafts and embroidery, Islamic lectures are the main focus,” she explained to Al-Monitor.

New PA Laws: Cutting Off Thieves' Hands, Lashes for Drinking Hamas is lobbying for a stricter enforcement of Islamic law in Gaza – including provisions to cut off the hands of thieves

Hamas is lobbying for a stricter enforcement of Islamic law in Gaza – including provisions to cut off the hands of thieves, and execution of individuals who cheat on their spouses. A report in the Al-Hayat daily newspaper said that Hamas expects the new regulations to take effect in the coming months, after introduction of the legislation in the PA parliament.

Existing laws mete out the death penalty to individuals convicted of murder, spying, homosexuality, or selling land to Jews. The new legislation will expand the crimes for which individuals can be executed to include disloyalty to a spouse – having sexual relations outside the context of marriage. Other provisions of the law include chopping off the right hand of a thief (along with at least a seven year jail sentence), and lashes for a large number of “crimes,” including drinking alcoholic beverages and gambling. All the punishments are derived from sharia, Islamic law.

In addition, girls age 15 will be able to decide to marry on their own, without requiring permission from their parents. Individuals age ten and over are considered adults under the new legislation, and are subject to the full force of the law for offenses.

Hamas has a large majority in the PA parliament, with 74 of the 134 parliamentarians belonging to the Islamist party. Many of them belong to the fundamentalist Salafist movement, and they are behind the push for the new laws. While there is opposition in Hamas to the passage of the legislation at this point, it is expected to easily pass. Once it does, the laws will be extant in both Gaza and Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria, but it is not clear if they will be enforced there.

MUSLIM RIOTERS BEAT PEOPLE TO DEATH TO ENACT SHARIA LAW IN BANGLADESH

And there is a debate in this country whether we should prohibit the most oppressive and brutal system on the face of the earth? That it's even a question speaks to how far the Islamic supremacists have gotten in America.

I have been writing of the death marches by hundreds of thouands of Muslims in Bangladesh calling for the execution of bloggers. You didn't think they would it would end there, did you? This is fluid -- after the death demos, death .....

"Bangladeshi Islamic mob beating people to death to enact sharia law" LiveLeak, May 6 (thanks to Golem):

from yesterday, Sunday May 5- 200,000 Islamists marched in large rallies in Bangladesh to press the govt to enact hardline sharia law which critics have described as on par with the Taliban and their legal system. They also demand that the govt kill various bloggers and media figures for "insulting" Islam. Violence spread from Dhaka, the capital to other parts of the country including Chittagong, where this video was recorded and 5 people were murdered in large riots. I have no idea why these people were murdered by the mob, either they wore govt uniforms or they were Hindus, who have been targeted in large scale attacks recently by the majority muslim population. In total 20 people have so far been reported killed from yesterday with the figure likely to climb.

Civil Trial Attorney Baruch C. Cohen's letter to the editor regarding the Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine's sanitizing Sharia abuses

Dear Editor:

The April 2013 edition of the Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine presented an article by Abbas Hadjian entitled: “The Children of Sharia” about how Islamic nations apply civil and Islamic legal traditions differently in matters of child custody and spousal support. The article gave credence and even reverence to Islamic Sharia law and read as if this was just an innocent comparative law course. The article said nothing about how Sharia is a savage and barbaric set of archaic laws that threaten American democratic rule of law. 

Shariah Law punishes violators of Islamic law with stonings, executions, amputations, whipings and beatings. Sharia law allows “honor killings,” genital mutilation, pre-teen marriages, polygamy, and divorce & inheritance rules that undercut the standing of women (i.e, testimony from non-Muslims and even Muslim women is given less weight than that of Muslim men). The list of human rights abuses of Sharia go on and on. 

How your excellent magazine could turn such a blind eye to such human rights atrocities and sanitize Sharia's abuses as a legitimate set of laws worth studying is beyond me. 

Baruch C. Cohen, Esq.

Eye Gouging and Paralyzing: Saudi Arabia’s Tribal Justice Saudi judges, all of whom are Wahhabi clerics, are free to implement punishments in accordance with their own beliefs.

A Saudi court ordered Ali al-Khawahir, a 24-year-old Saudi citizen, to be surgically paralyzed as punishment for a crime he committed as a 14-year-old, that had left his victim paralyzed. The Western media has described the court’s ruling as an “eye for an eye punishment.”

According to reports in the Saudi Gazette, Khawahir stabbed a childhood friend in the spine during an argument ten years ago. The punishment, as decided by the Sharia courts, is similar to other methods used to administer justice, including beheading, flogging, stoning to death and eye gouging.

This arrangement is the product of the religious and tribal structure upon which Saudi Arabia’s system of justice and law enforcement is based. Although Saudi Arabia is a theocracy in which the ruler is responsible for applying Islamic law, the actual system of justice revolves around a nexus of power and money, a structure that protects the tribal and religious values that keep Saudi Arabia firmly in the control of the House of Saud.

In 1971, the judicial system was revised — a move that consolidated the power of those at the top. Power-holders across the country were tasked with appointing a number of quasi-judicial bodies to deal with administrative and economic disputes. With no legislative authority, however, these courts required the clerics to sanction their existence. For this very purpose, the clerics set up the Institute for Religio-Legal Opinions.

The Institute has its own enforcers, known as the Mutawayyin – The Committee for the Exhortation to Good and Interdiction to Evil – who ensure that Islamic values are implemented. The Committee’s most notable moment occurred in 2002, when its members prevented young girls from leaving a burning building because they were not wearing headscarves; at least fourteen of the girls were burned to death.

Crucially, Sharia Law, applied in both the criminal and civil courts, is not codified. With no precedence or structure, except for half-a-dozen defined crimes, Saudi judges, all of whom are Wahhabi clerics, are free to implement punishments in accordance with their own beliefs.

In many ways, the system is feudal. As in medieval Europe, a blood-money payment to the victim’s family is evidently often permissible in lieu of legal retribution – an alternative to punishment presumably designed to prevent bad blood between different communities or tribes. In the case of Ali al-Khawahir, the price of avoiding paralysis is one million Saudi riyals ($266,000) – a price the family cannot afford.

Money, it seems, is the ultimate guarantor, facilitating both power and compromise. In 1982, Ghazi Algosaibi, the Western-educated Saudi Minister for Industry, proclaimed that the man who takes bribes is “active and intelligent, usually enjoying the respect of others.”

As some families are able to afford such financial redress, for those with wealth or influence, therefore, certain crimes are alluring and unconstrained modes of behavior. More often than not, those who can afford to pay blood-money are clerics or members of the 3000-strong royal family. Recently, for example, in Saudi Arabia a “celebrity” cleric raped and murdered his 5-year-old daughter, but was released after he paid the prescribed blood money to the child’s mother. The King, however, after a public outcry, ultimately overruled the court and placed the cleric back in prison.

Under such a system, however, not only can rich males can buy their way out of the judicial system, but according to one Saudi human rights group, the law rules that a father cannot be executed for murdering his children, and husbands cannot be executed for killing their wives.

Any discussion of inequality before the law however, is futile. Saudi’s justice seems designed solely to protect the power-holders. The legitimacy of the justice system, almost entirely based on Sharia law, is guaranteed by the Wahhabi clerics, who are rewarded with authority by the royal family.

The maintenance of “traditional Islamic values” therefore often seems to have more to do with the preservation of power and as an officially sanctioned outlet for the pathological wishes of fundamentalist clerics.

The Saudi armed forces also help to maintain the ruling family’s hold on the reins of power. While the clerics have their own enforcers and institutions, the National Guard chiefly consists of the descendants of those tribesmen who once fought with Abdul ibn Saud, the tribal leader who “founded” the House of Saud and first brought control over the entire country.

During the recent waves of protest throughout the Arab World, in Saudi Arabia there were only a few instances of dissent. The al-Saud regime, from what one can determine, did not even enter into discussion about any real political reform. Saudi Arabia suffers huge youth unemployment and its per capita income is less than that of neighboring Bahrain, where there were huge public protests.

In a recent report for the Council on Foreign Relations, F. Gregory Gause III, an academic at the University of Vermont, identified three key reasons for the suppression of all political discontent. First, at the beginning of the “Arab Spring,” the Saudi government provided two large payouts, equivalent to two months’ salary, for government employees, military personnel, and retired workers from large private-sector employers. Additional financial support was provided for unemployed youths through an expanded benefits system.

Second, security forces, recruited from tribes and regions which the regime regards as particularly loyal, were deployed to areas where the Shia population was involved in some small disturbances in February 2011. These forces demonstrated “that they were willing to arrest and shoot demonstrators, thus deterring larger protests.”

Finally, the regime utilized its patronage networks by calling upon the tribes, clans and religious courts to mobilize and support the regime. On March 6, the Council of Senior Clerics, the most important body within the religious-legal establishment, issued a statement forbidding demonstrations. Gause concludes that, “Al-Saud, aided both by their historical ties to the Wahhabi movement, central Arabian tribes, and important families, and by their vast oil wealth, have been able to build and sustain a broad network of support in the country.”

A number of Arab writers have drawn attention to the nature of the Saudi state. In his book Beyond Oil, the Kuwaiti academic Muhammed Ruhaimi concludes that, “Vested interests continue to block any rational or open political development.”

Saudi Arabia is paralyzed by the past. Immense oil-wealth has not brought about development; it has cemented the country’s tribalism and backwardness.

While it is possible that the king may commute the sentence handed down to Ali al-Khawahir, such an action only reminds the Saudi people of where true authority lies. The royal family is the source of legitimacy for the clerical courts and tribual institutions, which in turn guarantee absolute support of the royal family. By playing the clerics and institutions against the people, the House of Saud rises above justice and above the power struggle as it continues further to consolidate its power.

Originally published at the Gatestone Institute.

If you do not believe that Sharia law has come to America look at this picture and read this article

What's it like to be ruled by Islamic terrorists?

What's it like to be ruled by Islamic terrorists? Watch as a group of newly liberated Malians describe their ten months of hell. Let's go to the videotape.

Dr. Wafa Sultan exposes Islamic values with Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad

Dr. Wafa Sultan, a remarkably courageous and thoughtful Muslim freethinker, recently debated Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad. Dr. Sultan watched passively while the good Sheik expressed without equivocation his pious views—in full accord with classical, mainstream Islamic doctrine on jihad —and then politely added her own plain spoken commentary in response.

This less than 8-minute video segment, if viewed objectively and dispassionately, could do more to educate the American public on the theory animating the practice of “Islamic international relations,” without any further explanation required.

Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Dan F via andrewbostom.org:).

Newt Gingrich: Ban Sharia - It is" totally abhorrent to the Western World"

The Case for Banning Sharia Law in America

The incompatibility of Islamic sharia law with secular courts stems from the underpinning of Islamism -- the unyielding union of the laws and punishments of the Qu'ran and Hadiths with the country's legal and political system.  Sharia law is the legislation of these religious and criminal rules, which rejects America's constitutional secularism and legal penalties.

The Qu'ran commands Muslims to change secular laws to conform to sharia, eventually establishing Islamic law worldwide.  Islamic courts want their fatwas to supersede the civil and criminal laws, untying Muslims from civil secular courts.

The facts reveal that in 2008, when the first sharia court was recognized in the U.K., within one year, over 85 recognized sharia courts were established within the U.K.'s Tribunal Court system.  The problem with this rapidly spreading dogma is that several of these courts have issued some fatwas that are completely incompatible with British and European law.

As Islam is a male-dominated ideology, the laws of the Qu'ran make half of its devotees, its female population, second-class citizens.  This inequality has drawn recent attention to the need for additional British legislation to rein in these courts so they abide by British law.

It appears that once any legal system opens its doors to Islamic law, that door will be hard to close...and eventually, the only thing missing will be a parallel Islamic government.

But even with this reality in front of Americans, there are still many who insist that our laws will prevent such circumstances from ever occurring in the U.S.  And because of this nonchalant attitude, there are numbers of people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who believe that sharia law is not a threat to non-Muslim Americans or to the Western liberal democratic rule of law.

Sharia Law Is in the U.S.

The possibility that Muslim-only towns and urban enclaves could be created in the U.S. seems unimaginable to most Americans, but it already is a reality.  Just travel 150 mile northwest of New York City to the woods of the western Catskills, and you will find Islamberg, a private Muslim community founded in 1980 by Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani.  Sheikh Gilani is said to be one of the founders of Jamaat al-Fuqra, a terrorist organization believed to be responsible for dozens of bombings and murders in the U.S. and abroad.

Islamberg is only one of twenty to thirty Muslim-only communities and training compounds that this Pakistani group supports through Muslim affiliates in America.  This radical group has purchased land in isolated areas close to city networks and infrastructure.  Jamaat al-Fuqra now has sites in Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, Washington, Colorado, Michigan, and Illinois, as well as Canada, Venezuela, and Trinidad.

The sharia debate in the U.S. is heating up as more and more Americans are reacting to lawyers requesting rulings based on sharia law, and local judges agreeing to make them.  This has happened in a New Jersey divorce case, a Maryland child custody case, and most recently in a Florida property case.  These cases are now a precedent for other American-Muslim communities.  In addition, according to the Center for Security Policy study that was published in May 2011, there are actually over fifty Appellate Court cases from 23 states that all involve conflicts between sharia law and American state law.

There are numbers of Muslim community leaders challenging the delicate line between religious freedom and the laws against state religion by petitioning in favor of living under sharia law.  The moment one court allows the establishment of an independently ruled enclave, others courts in liberal cities across the nation will petition for the same opportunity.

Another example of efforts to usurp the Constitution are the actions of the global Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), whose main agenda is to have "hate speech" laws enforced against anyone who criticizes Islam.  And, unfortunately, there are those determined to enforce sharia on their own who attack and murder any nearby dissenters.  The Qu'ran justifies and protects these people's violence by declaring that it is blasphemous to mock or degrade any component of Islam.  According to sharia law, such activity is punishable by death.

It is this ongoing effort to shut down public criticism of Islam that presents the gravest danger to America -- one that the Muslim Brotherhood and its Salafist organizations regard as key to limiting individual rights over the rights of the community.  The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), along with other Islamic activist groups, continues to push back, often with demonization of character and follow-up lawsuits.  Recently, intimidation and character assassination have been used against U.S. politicians who question Islamism or want hearings on issues relating to radical Islamic terrorism, along with those Congressmen who introduce state legislation to ban all foreign law.

Preventing Sharia through Legislation

The Court of Appeals is the system used to review lower court decisions and believed by some to be the stopgap against foreign law, including sharia, from entering our legal system.  However, some Islamic cases that have reached the Appellate Court for review have retained the sharia rulings even in the face of sharia's contradiction to American civil law.

The U.S. is heading towards dangerous territory if its citizens buy into the twisting of constitutional amendments.  Indeed, what everyone really needs is the interpretations of the laws as they are written in order to prevent the encroachment of Islamism into the court system.

The establishment of sharia courts within the arbitration laws is a leading objective of every peace-loving, kindhearted, moderate male Muslim.  I have asked several male American Muslims whom I know, some living very happily in my community and in the U.S., what their one greatest wish is.  The answer is always the same: "Everyone should be a Muslim."

The line must be drawn in states' legislatures, not in the courts.  It is imperative that we recognize the differences between the religion of Islam and the ideology of Islamism.  Political correctness is leading to interpretations of the Constitution and its amendments that are pushing America across that line.

If non-Muslim Americans do not recognize how close they are to the precipice, then they are beyond a shadow of a doubt going to fall victims to an Islamic conquest.  Time is running out.

Al Qaeda flag atop Libya courthouse

From The Telegraph:

The black flag of Al Qaeda has been spotted flying over a public building in Libya, raising concerns that the country could lurch towards Muslim extremism.


The flag, complete with Arabic script reading "there is no God but Allah" and full moon underneath, was seen flying above the Benghazi courthouse building, considered to be the seat of the revolution, according to the news website Vice.com.

The flag was said to be flying over the building alongside the Libyan national flag but the National Transitional Council has denied that it was responsible.
Vice.com also reported that Islamists had been seen driving around the city's streets, waving the Al Qaeda flag from their cars and shouting "Islamiya, Islamiya! No East, nor West".

The revelation came just days after it emerged that rebels in Libya have imposed Sharia law in the some parts of country since seizing power.

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, said Islamic Sharia law would be the "basic source" of legislation in free Libya

That Arab Spring is fast approaching winter....

Libya's interim leader acts fast to implement Sharia

From The Telegraph:

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de fact president, had already declared that Libyan laws in future would have Sharia, the Islamic code, as its "basic source".

But that formulation can be interpreted in many ways - it was also the basis of Egypt's largely secular constitution under President Hosni Mubarak, and remains so after his fall.

Mr Abdul-Jalil went further, specifically lifting immediately, by decree, one law from Col. Gaddafi's era that he said was in conflict with Sharia - that banning polygamy.

In a blow to those who hoped to see Libya's economy integrate further into the western world, he announced that in future bank regulations would ban the charging of interest, in line with Sharia. "Interest creates disease and hatred among people," he said.

Libya is already the most conservative state in north Africa, banning the sale of alcohol. Mr Abdul-Jalil's decision - made in advance of the introduction of any democratic process - will please the Islamists who have played a strong role in opposition to Col Gaddafi's rule and in the uprising but worry the many young liberal Libyans who, while usually observant Muslims, take their political cues from the West.

Well, that was fast.

Despots or imams - take your pick. Because liberal western-style democracy sure doesn't seem to be on the horizon.

Sharia Law in Germany, Holland and Britain (the US not far behind)

PipeLineNews.org - "Their courtrooms are mosques, their law is the Sharia: Islamic peace judges undermine the rule of law," the influential German weekly Der Spiegel reported last August. "The legal authorities do not know how to defend themselves against it." European crime statistics show a proportionally higher crime rate amongst populations of non-Western origin. (Drug smuggling, migrant trafficking, document forgery, violent robberies, rape, prostitution, honor crimes, etc.)
So-called Islamic "peace judges" or arbiters are settling criminal cases, not just in Germany but in other European countries as well. Muslim immigrants prefer their own judges and do not trust secular Western legal systems. Thus, Islamic shadow justice systems are making inroads into Western societies. "Under Sharia law to settle disputes can be innocent, but it can also undermine Western ideas of fairness," Der Spiegel reports. Journalist Joachim Wagner, author of a new German study on parallel justice, says that the world of the Islamic shadow justice system is "very foreign, and for a German lawyer completely incomprehensible. It follows its own rules. The Islamic arbitrators aren't interested in evidence when they deliver a judgment, and unlike in German criminal law, the question of who is at fault doesn't play much of a role." The arbitrators "talk with the perpetrator's family who are generally the ones who have called the arbitrator, and with the victim's family," Wagner says. "They ask: Why did this happen? How bad is the damage? How serious is the injury? But for them, a solution of the conflict, a compromise, is the most important thing."
"The problem starts when the arbitrators force the justice system out of the picture, especially in the case of criminal offenses," Wagner says. "At that point they undermime the state monopoly on violence. Islamic conflict resolution in particular, as I've experienced it, is often achieved through violence and threats. It's often a dictate of power on the part of the stronger family." "These arbitrators try to resorve conflicts according to Islamic law and to sideline German criminal law. We see witness testimony withdrawn (from German courts) and accusations trivialized to the point where an entire case runs aground. The justice system is 'powerless,' partly because it hasn't tackled the problem vigorously enough." Judges and prosecutors "are overwhelmed, because they don't know how to react," Wagner claims "They are in the middle of a legal case, and suddenly there's no evidence. Eighty-seven percent of the cases I researched either were dismissed or ended with an acquittal when Islamic arbitrators are involved." "Decisions by Islamic arbitrators, so I noticed, are often implemented by force and making threats."
"Certain defense lawyers," Wagner says, "need to stop behaving as if they were mere servants to a parallel justice system. They allow themselves to be directed by their clients' desires, regardless of truth and justice."
Der Spiegel discusses the case of Fuat S. who was beaten up so badly by a Palestinian named Mustafa O. and his three brothers, that he ended up in a Berlin hospital. S., a notorious gambler who is on welfare, owed Mustafa O. 150,000 euros. They threatened to kill him if he failed to pay Mustafa. Mustafa O. was a frequent violent offender and Berlin prosecutors now hoped they could finally bring him to justice. However, during the trial key witness Fuat S. unexpectely withdrew his previous statement, claiming it was not Mustafa O. who tortured him but a Albanian man he didn't know. An obvious lie, but the court had to acquit the suspect. What had happened? The families of both the victim and the perpetrators had agreed to follow the decision of an Islamic peace judge or arbitrator. Fuat would not blame Mustafa in court, and for his part, Mustafa would let off part of Fuat's debt.
Judges and prosecutors complain that witnesses are subjected to systematic intimidation, and that even they, too, are intimated. Serious crimes committed by an increasing number of Muslim immigrants are no longer cleared up. A Munich Imam named Sheikh Abu Adam, dresssed as a fundamentalist Muslim, told Der Spiegel: "My ruling is more just than the one proclaimed by the state." "I tell my people, don't go to the police. We solve these conflicts among ourselves." vIslamic mediators also play an important role in "solving" cases of honor crimes and forced marriages. Der Spiegel reported last year that German courts apply Sharia law, especially concerning cases of family law and the law of inheritance. (Under Sharia law female heirs inherit half of what male heirs in a similar position would inherit.) Jordanian immigrants in Germany are married and divorced in accordance with Jordanian law. Even polygamous marriages are recognized. A Jordanian woman who enters into a polygamous marriage in her home country with a Jordanian immigrant in Germany is entitled to welfare in Germany. A Moroccan man living in Germany was married to two Moroccan women. One of the women refused to share her husband's pension with his second wife. However, a German court applied Morrocan Sharia law and ruled that both wives were entitled to receive the same amount of money.
It was during a visit to Germany in February 2008 that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan called on the Turkish immigrant community not a assimilate into German society. Peter Struck, a prominent social democratic politician, then critized Erdogan saying he gave the impression that he endorsed the creation of "parallel societies."
The Netherlands and Britain
The liberal Dutch newspaper NRC Next recently reported that Dutch courts sometimes apply Sharia law, too, provided, so the paper finds, it does not conflict with legal, social and moral principles deemed essential by these courts. A Dutch woman went to Iran and married an Iranian man. In doing so she automatically acquired Iranian nationality. When she applied for a divorce in Holland, Dutch judges decided not to apply Dutch but Iranian law, as both spouses were Iranians. Iran does not recognize community of property in marriages, so this woman did not receive anything from her former husband. This, in my view, was not a very wise decision by the Dutch court, even though this Iranian marriage was concluded before the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979. The woman in question was Dutch originally.
In 676 cases, Dutch courts even applied primitive Somali law. Such are the blessings of "multiculturalism." A court in the Dutch city of The Hague ruled on June 29, 2009 that Somali law was applicable in the case of a Somali man who denied that he was the father of a child of his former wife. The court further ruled that "under Somali law" the man in question is not the legal father of the child. (Some Somali asylum seekers have more than ten children.)
Polygamous marriages are recognized under Sharia law and it is even possible to recognize ("register") such marriages under Dutch law. Back in May 2008, Dutch Labor Party politician Jeroen Dijsselbloem sounded the alarm about polygamous marriages. "More and more young Muslims opt for Islamic marriages," he said. "They don't marry at city halls, so from a legal point of view such marriages are illegitimate. In doing so Muslims indicate that that to them Islamic marriage laws are more important than Dutch law."
In 2008, a Dutch-Turkish woman was raped by her nephew. But the Dutch-Turkish Imam Bahauddin (Bahaeddin) Budak advised her not to inform her relatives about it. If she would go pulic about the crime and sue her nephew in court, her life might be in danger. He also advised her to forgive the perpetrator. Such crimes are very common among Turkish, Moroccan, Pakistani, Iraqi and Iranian immigrants in Europe many of whom still regard women as sex objects. There is also a strong tendency to cover up crimes such as rape. Women who dare to talk about it in public, or who report such crimes to the police, very often face serious repercussions, since the so-called "honor of the family" is at stake. In too many cases, these defenseless victims are subsequently even killed by family members. Budak was also a Muslim religious teacher at the "Inholland university of applied sciences" in Amsterdam. Inholland's director Cor de Raadt had Budak temporarily suspended, but a lot of Dutch Muslims complained about De Raadt's decision and showed solidarity with Imam Budak.
Islamic courts and fundamentalist Muslim clerics who introduce Sharia law to the Muslim community in Britain are having a greater impact on Britain's 1.6 million strong Muslim community than is often assumed. While the traditional churches are on the decline and are loosing members every day, the Muslim community is thriving, and many young Brits are converting to Islam. Christian symbols are outlawed, and the British Mail on Sunday reported recently that the BBC "has stopped using the terms BC and AD, in case they offend non-Christians." "The BBC has replaced 'Anno Domini' and 'Before Christ' with 'Common Era' and 'Before Common Era.'" In February 2008, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, an outspoken leftist, gave a lecture "that sparked controversy for advocating the adoption of parts of Sharia, or Islamic law, in Britain." Quoting Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer Tariq Ramadan, Williams wanted to "dispell myths about Sharia." He argued, the London Times reported, "for a 'plural jurisdiction' that would allow Muslims to choose whether some legal disputes were resolved in secular or Sharia courts. He called for 'constructive accomodation' over such issues as resolving marriage disputes." "I seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Sharia are already recognized in our society." He also said that there was no place for "extreme punishments" and discrimination against women. Obviously, the most senior British cleric does not want Britain to return to the harsh human rights record of the Middle Ages (killing "heretics" and the burning of so-called "witches", etc.)
Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, the Anglican Bishop of Rochester and a Pakistani by birth, strongly disagrees with the Archbishop of Canterbury. He claimed recently that parts of Britain were no-go areas for non-Muslims. He also said: "English law is rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and our notions of human freedoms derive from that tradition. It would be impossible to introduce a tradition like Sharia into this corpus without fundamentally affecting its integrity."
Sharia law allows a Muslim man "to conclude multiple marriages with up to four wives, without the need for permission of the first wife." Thus, polygamy is justified and "a growing number young British Muslims are taking second or third wives in an unexpected revival," The Australian recently reported. "The new wave of polygamy is revealed in a special report by the BBC Asian Network using findings from the Islamic Sharia Council." "These wives are not recognized by British law, but are considered legitimate within many Muslim communities." Khola Hasan, lecturer and advisor to the Islamic Sharia Council said: "Young men who have come under a more radical understanding of faith know it is illegal to marry more than once (under British law), but do it to spite the system."
"Our law maintains the best virtues of our society," writes Minette Marrin, an excellent British columnist, in The Sunday Times of Febuari 2, 2008. "Anybody who does not accept it does not belong here." She is right. If Muslims want to force medieval Sharia law practices on our secular societies, which they hate so much, why don't they go back to Pakistan or the Middle East? Why don't all those women wearing Burqas or Niqabs just emigrate to Saudi Arabia, Iran or Afghanistan?
"There is a lot to be said against Sharia and the desire of 40% of British Muslims to live under it," writes Minette Marrin. "Sharia is rightly feared here: it is disputed, sometimes primitive, grievously in need of reform and wholly unacceptable in Britain." She accuses the Archbishop of Canterbury of seeking "to undermine our legal system and the values on which it rests." That is an "unnecessary appeasement to an alien set of values." "It is a betrayal of all those who struggled and died here, over the centuries, for freedom and equality under the rule of law and of their courage in the face of injustice and unreason."
Emerson Vermaat is an investigative reporter in the Netherlands. Website: emersonvermaat.com
Sources:
Der Spiegel (Germany), August 29, 2001, p. 57-59 ("Allahs Richter"); Spiegelonline, September 1, 2011 ("Islamic Justice in Europe: 'It's Often a Dictate of Power'"). Quotes from Joachim Wagner and Abu Adam.
Jocham Wagner, Richter ohne Gesetz. Islamischen Paralleljustiz gefährdet unseren Rechtsstaat (Berlin: Econ Verlag, 2011). "Friedensrichter klinkt nach einen ehrbaren Beruf. Doch unbemerkt von der öffentlichkeit und sogar der Justiz hat sich in muslimisch geprägten Einwanderervierteln eine islamische Paralleljustiz etabliert."
Spiegelonline, October 9, 2010 ("Deutsche Gerichte wenden Scharia an").
For more examples of German courts applying Sharia law, see, inter alia, "Ehrenmord," http//de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrenmord.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt, Germany), February 13, 2008, p. 1 ("Struck: Erdogan fördert Entwicklung von Parallelgesellschaften").
Der Spiegel, November 15, 2004, p. 60-88 ("Für uns gelten keine Gesetze"). A lengthy and well documented article on the Turkish immigrant community, the practice of forced marriages, wifebeating and the existence of parallel societies in Germany.
NRC Next September 29, 2011, p. 3 ("Sharia in Nederland: onzin of realiteit").
Imam Bahaeddin Budak en verkrachting, Leugens.nl, May 30, 2008; Trouw (Amsterdam), June 11, 2008, p. 7 ("Protest moslims tegen ontslag imam InHolland").
Rechtspraak.nl, Zoek (Search): "Somalisch recht" (Somali law), 676 uitspraken (676 Dutch court decisions). "Rechtspraak.nl" is the official website of the Dutch courts. Spits (Netherlands), May 22, 2008, p. 1, 3 ("Rem op islamhuwelijken"). Quote from Jeroen Dijsselbloem; NRC Handelsblad (Amsterdam/Rotterdam), August 9, 2008, p. 3 ("Jaarlijks vele polygame huwelijken"). "Ambtenaren van de burgerlijke stand in met name de grote steden registreren jaarlijks tientallen bigame of polygame huwelijken. Deze huwelijken zijn in Nederland verboden en strafbaar." 'Het valt nu buiten onze statistieken,' zegt Jan Latten van het CBS. 'Zo boeken we ook huwelijken af waarbij veertienjarigen ingeschreven staan.'"
Rechtspraak.nl, LJN BK 1042, Rechtbank 's-Gravenhage, 321366/FARK 08- 7981, June 29, 2009. (Decision by the court of The Hague).
Jan Harris, BBC in AD/BC controversy, Interfaith.org., September 27, 2011.
Timesonline (London), February 8, 2008 ("Archbishop of Canterbury argues for Islamic law in Britain"). Also the quotes from Dr. Michael Nazir Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, as well as the "Full text of Archbishop's Lecture – Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective."
Jan Michiel Otto, Sharia Incorporated. A Comparative Overview of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in Past and Present (Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University Press, 2010), p. 631 (polygamy), p. 632 (inheritance).
The Australian, September 27, 2011 ("British Muslims reviving polygamy").
Minette Marrin, Archbishop, you've committed treason, The Sunday Times, February 10, 2008, p. 16.