RICHARD CARLSON: Dispatches from the Danger Zone

New moves against women by radical Muslims in Nigeria.

In Kano, a busy trade center of a half million people in the North, women are now banned from motorcycle taxis and can only sit on the back seat of mini-buses. 

This, the authorities say, is to preserve public morality. 

They are upset because women passengers have been sitting too close to the male drivers.

Kano is one of 12 states in Northern Nigeria now dominated by Islamic Law.   

Authorities have introduced flogging for drinking liquor, amputations for stealing, and death by stoning for adultery.

Comments

[Always On Watch]

Islamic law is brutal and incompatible with Western law. The media don't report the brutalities but rather dwell on trivialities such as alleged desecrations of the Koran at Gitmo.

Schoolchildren used to learn in history textbooks some of the details of Islamic law. Now the books contain mostly the contributions of Muslim culture. Such an approach is one-sided and amounts to a whitewash of Islam. This whitewash is not surprising because one of the social-studies curriculum consultants is Susan Douglass, a convert to Wahhabism.

[John]

That would be the same brutality that executes innocent people, junveniles and those with mental problems? The Judeo-Christian 'justice' system is little different. And what, exactly, is the connection between the 10 Commandments and the laws of the West? Some interpretations of Islam are brutal; the majority are not. That's why it's called Islamic extremism. It's the same flavor as Christian extremism and the brand of hatred espoused by Kahane.
Let's not attack cultures we don't understand, particularly when ours is far from perfect.

[Always On Watch]

Criticism and open discussion are not the same as attack. Criticism and open discussion lead to reform.

As to capital punishment in the United States, name all the cases of the execution of innocents. Furthermore, capital punishment is the penalty only for the violation of civil law, not for the violation of religious law.

Other punishments--floggings, to name one--are now forbidden by Western civil law, despite what the OT says.

Western civil codes are much more moderate than rules found in Western holy books. Over the centuries, Bible-based civil laws have been modified to be more humane; Islamic law has not.

Courts here are revising capital-punishment laws to limit the execution of mental defectives. Most states do not allow for the execution of juveniles--that injustice was modified some years ago.

Holy books and religious institutions should be used to understand how to live one's own personal faith--not as civil law. Because of past abuses Western society gradually came to this realization, beginning in the 18th century.

Bottom line: Western law allows for revisions of those laws based on societal norms. Islamic law is oppressive and absolute.

[Mars]

How do we know that this is radical Islam? In my opinion this could be mainstream Islam. If this law is radical, why doesn't Leaders of the greater Muslim world say so and put pressure on the Nigerians to reform? I believe chastisement from fellow Muslims that are against this type of punishment may encourage Nigerian Muslims to do away with it.

However, I am amazed at the lack of retort from the member states in the UN. You would think condemnation by almost 200 nations would surely cause the Nigerians to outlaw this form of discipline. Sadly, it appears that most of the world, especially Muslim, accepts this practice of law as a norm in the Islamic culture. I assume this is why there is no worldwide public outrage.