Saturday, January 17, 2009

Pakistan: Taliban's Sharia Judges Order Beatings, Executions

The Sunday edition of the Times Online has an article on sharia justice coming to Pakistan:
More than 70 Taliban courts are now ruling on hundreds of cases of “immoral activity” every week in the Swat valley, whose mountains, lakes and meadows were once a draw for tourists.

The article notes how the implementation is done in stages:
One Taliban judge in the Kooza Bandai region boasted that he had ruled on 55 cases in the past week. Almost all the decisions are verbal and there are no formal procedures.

The emergence of a parallel Taliban legal system has a sinister objective. “This is our first step towards the implementation of sharia in Swat,” said Muslim Khan, a Taliban spokesman. In the next phase, Khan said, the courts would begin to carry out harsher punishments, such as execution or chopping off hands.

Villagers said the Taliban were already killing people who defied their orders. “They didn’t even spare barbers and women coming out of markets without wearing their veils,” said a Mingora resident.

There have been 51 Taliban executions since the start of the year, he added. The victims include politicians, security men, dancers, prostitutes and shopkeepers selling alcohol.

We should be very careful of allowing any encroachment of sharia because it will not be viewed as enough, but rather a foot in the door.
Read it all here.

1 comment:

Christopher Logan said...

These laws are what they want to bring to the world. Yet many on the left just do not see the threat.