Examples of Sharia compliant law in non-Muslim countries.

Call it political correctness or just plain stupid but city officials in Dandnong, Victoria in Australia just released a new rule regarding public modesty at swimming pools for everyone that was designed to comply with Muslim demands for Sharia Law over exposing bare skin. We’ve all seen examples of the full body coverings the Muslims call the Burqa. Now at the behest of some Muslims in Australia, the government has issued a rule that ALL Australians must cover up their bodies when they are swimming or lounging around the water. Here is the story from the Dandenong Leader newspaper, 16 September 2010.

DANDENONG’S mayor has called on residents to embrace a Muslim event at which people will be forced to cover up. The event, to be held after hours at the public Dandenong Oasis pool on August 21, 2011, will require all participants older than 10 to follow a dress code of knee-length shorts and T-shirts. Women and men attending the event, aimed at diverse backgrounds, will be required to cover their torsos, extending to the upper arms and from waist to knee.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal granted an exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act after an application was lodged by Victorian YMCA on behalf of itself and the City of Greater Dandenong. A women’s only swim session has operated at Dandenong Oasis from 6.15pm to 8.15pm on Sundays for the past two years. Greater Dandenong Mayor Jim Memeti said the women’s-only program had requested the council’s support to hold a “one-off community event for two hours to celebrate Ramadan ... in a culturally respectful manner”.

A similar rule was instituted in August 2009 in Great Britain and reported by the London Telegraph newspaper which said: "British swimming pools have begun hosting special Muslim swim sessions during which swimmers — including non-Muslims — are banned from entering the pool if their swimming attire doesn't comply with dress code required by Islamic custom."

In the June 30, 2010 issue of Vanity Fair, liberal writer and columnist Maureen Dowd apparently ditched her journalistic inquisitiveness when she wrote a story entitled: A Girl’s Guide to Saudi Arabia that included the following picture of her wearing a bathing suit variation called a Burqini that she says she bought in Australia.

Ms. Dowd writes: “I had bought a Burqini online from an Australian company, figuring I’d need one to go swimming. A Burqini—a burka bikini—is a full-body suit that resembles Apolo Ohno’s Olympic outfit or the getup Woody Allen wore to play a sperm in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex …"

This is a swimsuit designed especially for muslim women wanting to become life guards in Australia (for more info see www.burkini.com)

The Australian newspaper The Herald Sun also reported about the public reaction to the new rule in Dandenong and the story mentioned they got almost 800 comments.

Cover up for pool event during next year's Ramadan

by: Padraic Murphy
September 23, 2010

UPDATE 12.35pm: A PLAN to force families to cover up to avoid offending Muslims at a public event has triggered furious debate. An overwhelming 94 per cent of heraldsun.com.au readers disagree with the legal ruling approving the contentious ban during next year's Ramadan.

So far the Premier John Brumby has refused to weigh into the debate about the event, saying he will wait to see the VCAT ruling before making any comment.

VCAT has approved a ban on uncovered shoulders and thighs for a community event to be held at the Dandenong Oasis, a municipal pool.

"Participants aged 10 and over must ensure their bodies are covered from waist to knee and the entire torso extending to the upper arms," a request by Dandenong City Council and the YMCA states in an exemption application to the Equal Opportunities Act.

"Participants must not wear transparent clothing."
This issue has also sparked a huge community debate, with well over 500 people commenting on heraldsun.com.au this morning.

Many readers feel the administrative ruling has gone too far to appease minority interests, and even senior Islamic figures have raised concerns about the precedent.

The request has been approved by VCAT and applies to a family event to be held at the pool next August. "The applicant intends this to be an event where people of all races and religions and ages may attend, use the Centre's facilities and socialise together," VCAT notes.

"The holy month of Ramadan has a particular focus on families and the applicant wishes to encourage families to attend and socialise together with others. "The minimum dress requirements are set having regard to the sensitivities of Muslims who wish to participate in the event."

The ban on skimpy clothes will apply between 6.15 and 8.15pm on August 21 next year, a time when the pool is closed to the public and normally used by a Muslim women's swimming group. The ban was yesterday compared by the Human Rights Commissioner Helen Szoke to a ban on thongs in a pub. "Matters such as this are not easy to resolve and require a balance to be achieved between competing rights and obligations," she said. "Dress codes are not uncommon: eg singlets, jeans, thongs etc in pubs/hotels."

Sherene Hassan, vice-president of the Islamic Society of Victoria, said she didn't support the dress restrictions. "My preference would be that no dress code is stipulated," Ms Hassan said.

But Liberty Victoria said the ban was reasonable because the event was to be held out of hours.
A spokeswoman for the City of Greater Dandenong said the ban would help Muslims feel part of the community.

There it is in the last sentence. The ban on conventional bathing attire was created so that it "would help Muslims feel part of the community". Sacrifice any right so that you don't offend any Muslims.

There are nearly 3.5 million Arab Americans in the United States according to The Arab American Institute. That is only about 1.3% of our population. Arab-Americans live in all 50 states and Washington, DC - and 94% reside in the metropolitan areas of major cities. The demographics from the 2010 Census haven’t been released yet but as of the last count 10 years ago in the 2000 U.S. Census, 48% of the Arab-American population - 576,000 - reside in California, Michigan, New York, Florida and New Jersey, respectively; these 5 states collectively have 31% of the net U.S. population. Five other states - Illinois, Texas, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania - report Arab-American populations of more than 40,000 each. Also, the counties which contained the greatest proportions of Arab-Americans were in California, Michigan, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the city with the largest percentage of Arab Americans is Dearborn, Michigan (southwestern suburb of Detroit) at nearly 30%. The Detroit metropolitan area of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans (403,445) followed by Los Angeles (308,295), New York (230,899), Chicago (176,208), and Washington D.C. (168,208)

So with a handful of U.S. cities having any sizable Muslim populations, how have the laws been changed to accommodate them. Here is a selection of fairly good examples as compiled from the news. I am sure there are more but I have only begun keeping track for a few weeks.

Michigan
In Dearborn, Michigan, a city with more than 30% Muslim population, Sharia Law is being enforced by the city police department. Standing on a public street some Christian missionaries working with  Acts 17 Apologetics were arrested by the police for handing out leaflets because some Muslims at an Arab Festival across the street complained.

In 2007, the University of Michigan installed ritual foot baths to accommodate Islamic tradition. "These things are beginning to percolate up as Shariah-adherent Muslims insist that their preferences and practices be accommodated by the rest of the population," said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy — a Washington think tank

In East Lansing, Michigan someone found a burned copy of the Koran outside the Islamic Center of East Lansing. Whoever did it was exercising their Freedom of Speech just like the leftists do when they burn an American flag but the police department has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. The police official who posted the reward was Det. Sherief Fadly. Apparently the First Amendment does not exist in this city.

Minnesota
A federal judge gave approval for Gold'n Plump Inc. and an employment agency to pay $1.35 million to settle lawsuits alleging religious discrimination against Muslims at a chicken processing plant in Cold Spring, Minn.

The money will go to 128 Somali Muslims who claim that St. Cloud-based Gold'n Plump violated their religious rights by refusing to allow them prayer breaks during work hours, and to another 28 workers who said a St. Paul employment agency, the Work Connection Inc., required them to sign forms acknowledging they would be required to handle pork.

Minnesota
Muslim taxi cab drivers want to refuse passengers at the airport who they believe may be carrying alcohol. The Metropolitan Airports Commission had proposed to give those Shar'i-minded drivers an off-colored light atop their cabs, allowing them to remain in queue while customers with bottles found other cabs but the plan was denied. "Proposed Taxi Test Program Canceled at Minneapolis-St. Paul International; Other Options Will be Considered To Improve Taxi Service," explained that public response to the proposed program " has been overwhelmingly against creation of a two-tiered taxi service system." Hassan Mohamud, vice president of Minnesota MAS, naturally expressed his disappointment in the decision. "More than half the taxi drivers are Muslim and ignoring the sensibilities of that community at the airport I think is not fair."

Minnesota
In Minnesota, the state accommodates Shariah's prohibition on interest payments by buying homes from realtors and reselling them to Muslims at an up-front price. Since when does government structure financial transactions to accommodate a single religious code?

New Jersey
State Motor Vehicle Dept. allows Muslim women to be photographed wearing full face covering with burqas for a drivers license.

New Jersey Transit Dept. fires employee for burning the Quran. Burning the Qur'an is not against American law. It may be obnoxious, but it is not illegal.

New Jersey
 Family Court Judge Joseph Charles, found a Muslim man not guilty of forcing his wife to have sex with him. In denying the restraining order to the woman after her divorce, ruled that her ex-husband felt he had behaved according to his Muslim beliefs — and that he did not have “criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault” his wife. "This court does not feel that, under the circumstances, that this defendant had a criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault or to sexually contact the plaintiff when he did. The court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited." The Appellate Court later reversed the decision.

New York
From NY POST: State testmakers played favorites when quizzing high-schoolers on world religions -- giving Islam and Buddhism the kid-gloves treatment while socking it to Christianity, critics say.

Teachers complain that the reading selections from the Regents exam in global history and geography given last week featured glowing passages pertaining to Muslim society but much more critical essay excerpts on the subject of Christianity.

"There should have been a little balance in there," said one Brooklyn teacher who administered the exam but did not want to be identified.

"I can see why some people might see these questions as skewed," said Mark MacWilliams, a religious-studies professor at St. Lawrence University in upstate Canton. "Why does the exam seem to have only documents that portray Islam as a religion of peace, civilization and refinement, while it includes documents about Christianity that show it was anything but peaceful in the Spanish conquest of the Americas?"

Oklahoma
Voters in November will decide a state question on the ballot on Banning Sharia Law. This sounds like a preemptive move in anticipation of the spread of Sharia Law.

Tennessee
In 2009, a Tyson Foods plant in Shelbyville, Tenn. replaced its traditional Labor Day holiday with paid time off on Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival — marking the end of fasting during Ramadan.

Nationwide
Best Buy chain of electronic stores orders employees to stop wishing Merry Christmas to customers. Also ads from store now wish Happy EID to celebrate Muslim holiday,

Nationwide
The web site The Catholic Knight reports: "Barack Obama’s nominee as Legal Adviser of the State Department, Harold Koh, has said that he has no objection to Islamic Sharia law being applied “in an appropriate case” in the United States. And at the same time, the world is witness to a veritable laboratory experiment of what it means to apply Sharia in a place where it previously had not been in effect."

"While Koh, of course, probably has in mind something like the voluntary Sharia arbitration courts that are currently operating in Britain, Sharia is a comprehensive system covering every aspect of life. It will not prove so easy to separate out its elements that do not conflict with Western laws from those that do...."

Europe has acquired larger Muslim populations due to very lax immigration policies. Policies that are now being questioned because of the numerous problems that have developed. Yet the population numbers on a country wide basis still reside below 10%, they are concentrated in areas that give them greater influence. 


Great Britain
Sharia Law has been officially recognized by the British Parliament and Muslim communities have been allowed to establish local courts to handle almost all civil matters.  The London Times reported the following on September 14, 2008:

ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.
The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.
Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims. It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

A story in American Thinker says: "A June 2010 report entitled "Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights" begins with Secretary General of the Islamic Sharia Council Suhaib Hasan saying, "If Sharia law is implemented, then you can turn this country [Great Britain] into a haven of peace because once a thief's hand is cut off nobody is going to steal." Furthermore, "once[,] just only once, if an adulterer is stoned[,] nobody is going to commit this crime at all," and finally, "[w]e want to offer it to the British society. If they accept it, it is for their good and if they don't accept it they'll need more and more prisons."

Another story appeared in The Brussels Journal on September 15, 2008.

From Magna Carta to Sharia Law – Britain’s Decline

Before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, few us knew anything about Islam, and no one had heard of sharia law. A couple of years ago even, it seemed unimaginable that Britain would adopt Islamic law.

We have sunk further and quicker than we thought possible. Today we learned that sharia courts (which have operated illegally in Britain until now) are being re-classed as tribunal hearings, making their judgments legally binding. According to the Daily Express, “new powers have been given to tribunals in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.” According to the Daily Mail, this “[…] new network of courts […] agree[s] to be bound by traditional sharia law, and under the 1996 Arbitration Act the court's decisions can then be enforced by the county courts or the High Court.”

Spain

A popular Spanish nightclub has been forced to change its name from Mecca after sparking a furious reaction around the Islamic world.

This act may also affect the English language use of the word “Mecca” which has been frequently use to indicate a haven of sorts, as in: “The store was a Mecca for sports enthusiasts.”

France

Home Overseas 7 May 2009
France has overhauled elements of its domestic tax law in a move that will allow the rules of Islamic finance to be followed without attracting tax penalties, therefore viewed by the tax authorities in the same way as their western counterparts.

The term ‘Islamic finance’ pertains to the ways that business and personal financial matters are handled while respecting Sharia law. Sharia forbids gambling and interest and so many of the transactions which are regarded as normal to conventional financial institutions – ranging from mortgages to interest bearing savings accounts to insurance – have to be structured differently and can in the process attract a tax penalty.

France has a Muslim population of six to seven million people, the largest in Western Europe. 

From the Digital Journal: 

Muslim youth in Britain are demanding that they be allowed to establish Islamic Law . . .

This story is really fascinating and speaks to a few issues. First, these radical enclaves are not uncommon in Europe - notably the Netherlands, Spain, France, and Norway, and they are increasingly common in the U.S. The second element is that there are studies underway in many of these countries that show that the young generation - who are often not native to the Middle East where their parents came from, but rather to theWestern host country, are in fact more fundamentalist, more violence-oriented, more radical in their religious fervor, than are their own parents and grandparents. (One well-documented example is the Muslim neighborhoods of Paris.)

The Swiss government has recently enforced an embargo on the construction of minarets on mosques. The French government has passed a ban on wearing the Burqa in public and so has Belgium and Spain. The backlash continues in other countries all due to the resistance of Muslims to assimilate themselves and become part of the community in the country the choose to live in. If you want to read the arguments the Muslims claim that justify their rejection of allegiances to their host countries, read the comments from pro-Muslim authorities on the web site Islam Online. The question we must ask ourselves AND ask our government, is why do these people think they have a right to tell us to obey their religious laws and why does our government agree with them. THIS IS AMERICA, either LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT.