Rape "impossible" in marriage

In his last week's presentation, pascal commented an article from the independant which raises the issue of rape within marriage.

Indeed, this delicate problem made recently headlines when the president of the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain, Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed stepped up and said that rape in marriage is "impossible" because "sex is part of the marriage" thereby "so long as the woman is his wife, it cannot be termed as a rape".

Pascal began by recalling us some important cultural and historical point to understand the issue at stake : in England, a large part of the immigration is constituted of muslims. Those above, in order to maintain their cultural specificities, (here in a legal perspective), created the sharia courts. These courts based on the Sharia, defined as the muslim or islamic law, permit to muslims to apply their own judicial proceedings in England. The spread of these courts have been astonishing in the country with more than 80 courts in operation. It must be precised here that non-muslims can also be judged by these courts. The judgements laid down can be approved, or not, by national courts to give these a full legal status.

This debate about rape in marriage seems to highlight the tensions between the english perception of the issue and the muslim perception crystalized in these sharia courts. More over, it stresses the more general tensions between national court system of justice and muslim courts system.

Indeed, the comments of Sheikh Sayeed aroused many reactions from english police officers, notably Dave Whatton, spokesman on rape for the association of chief police officers, who claims that these kind of comments "undermine everything we are trying to do" and he also rebelled against the growing influence of these sharia courts saying that "sharia law should not replace the laws of the UK".

Nevertheless, Sheikh Sayeed seems to acknowledge the fact that this kind of rapes exist and that this is "no good" and "not desirable" so offenders should be "disciplined and be made to ask forgiveness". However, despite the fact that he seems to qualify his remarks, he still thinks that the majority of these women report rape from their husband only to get a divorce. that's why he thinks rape in marriage does not exist and only do when women want to get a divorce, therefore, when women lie.

About the way this issue has to be handled, Sayeed exhorts victims of rape to name and shame their attackers online rather than reporting it to the police.

Evidently, the police does not share this point of view : Mr Whatton thinks that this kind of settlement does not make the women get the "medical and counselling support they need to overcome this traumatic experience" and it doesn't put the police in a position "to effectively prosecute offenders".

My opinion is rather similar than Inayat Bunglawala's. Indeed, he thinks comments of Sayeed are "inappropriate" and "misguided" and that rape is awful and against the law, within or without the marriage. I think these sharia courts block on certain issues the national court by making encounter two different perceptions. As far as I am concerned, the existence of such courts can only lead to division in the english society, english society known to be a multicultural, respectful of his immigration country.

Ilan Sarfati