h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Found this off the dawkins website:

http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2496657.ece

It's basically saying you can;t have multiculturalism and women's rights.

It gives the example of a woman who was beaten by her husband, went to the police and eventually to the courts to get a divorce. The judge did not grant the divorce as "as a Muslim, should have "expected" it, the judge explained. She read out passages from the Koran to show that Muslim husbands have the "right to use corporal punishment". Look at Sura 4, verse 34, she said to Nishal, where the Koran says he can hammer you"

whilst I think it is an incorrect usage of the word 'multiculturalism', this does seem to be somewhat concerning.
And it isn;t the only one. There's several others mentioned.

The language of the piece is very emotive and bias to a particular view of the cases. I don;t read german so haven;t been able to follow up on the reference to Der Spiegel so there could well be other factors in here.

Any German speakers out there able to comment on this? Or anyone else know anything about the cases?

To me it seems really rather strange. So strange that I can't see it being as it is reported.

IMO, the law and by extension the police, are far too culturally and colour aware. They should remember the maxim that "the law is blind" and apply the law of the land equally and without favour.

Too much to hope for nowadays when every action has an excuse.

It *is* terrible. The law should protect people from violence. Saying that because violence is deemed acceptable somewhere else, you come from there, therefore violence is acceptable here, is just so wrong. I'm shocked.

Was this that fairly recent case in Germany? From what I remember (hearing on the radio whilst driving), that judge got into quite a lot of trouble and discredit, including from Muslim sources. The argument boiled down to the fact that culture shouldn't overpower the local Law.

Following up on what Toy Box said (the judge was indeed removed from the case), try this article (from March 23 so we have to assume Hari would have known about this):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,2040982,00.html

"Commentators, politicians and Muslim leaders criticised the judge's decision, saying that choosing sharia above civil law was a threat to jurisprudence. Wolfgang Bosbach, of the Christian Democratic Union, said: "One thing must be clear: in Germany only German law applies.""

"Wolfgang Bosbach, of the Christian Democratic Union, said: "One thing must be clear: in Germany only German law applies.""

Indeed. "Surrender unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's", and all that.

Is there even a question here? The judge made a judgement, it was (one assumes) in error, therefore it should have been appealed. Either quoting the Koran as justification is appropriate, or it's not. If not, appeal granted, early divorce achieved. If it is, well, don't be a Muslim woman in Germany seems to be the message the German judiciary wish to send. To which I say, fine, that's how the Germans want their laws, good luck to them. None of our business.

Is there any evidence of anything similar happening here? I've not seen any. Anyone attempting to place sharia law above the law of the UK or pleading "culture" to excuse things like sacrificing sheep in the street or setting fire to their daughter is usually in a for a surprise. And a good thing too.

I have no problem with people believing whatever bizarre fairy story they need as a crutch to deal with reality. The split second they start breaking the law because of it, they should be locked up. Of course, the prisons are full...

SoRB

F135418?thread=4096860&skip=0&show=20

We kicked this around last week. See Post 20 onwards.

That article doesn´t exactly seem neutral and objective in its word usage.
I hadn´t heard about this, but it certainly sounds bad. In Denmark I haven´t either heard of cases that have been brought before court that have been treated in such a way. But even if the men get full sentencing for killing their daughters in honour killings, these things should never have happened in the first place. And I do blame that on multiculturalism.

It isn't multiculturalism that causes the honour killings, although it might be responsible for people making excuses for them. That seems unlikely to me. The article quoted by the OP seems to be another example of taking an isolated case and trying to claim its the rule.

cheers WA. and others for the extra info an links.

Thre are now Muslims Courts in this country which preside over common law issues not criminal law issues i.e. stuff that you can't get arrested for but needs to be mediated via, for want of a better word, impartial 'judges'.

I doubt very much that there would be any move by our government to allow Muslims to be ruled by a separate criminal Sharia Law. If there is then everyone up to those areas and start breaking those laws wholesale! Anyone up for a snog in Bradford?

Its pretty simple isn't it? Anyone who would include in British multiculturalism a concept of private laws (literally: privilege), is a moron.

So, , this devolution thing...

Culture is not an excuse for anything except a party.

So, what exactly is multiculturalism these days anyway? I mean beyond extending to people the basic rights of citizenship, freedom from arbitrary persecution, and equality before the law?

You've hit the nail onthe head there SWL. The police should be acting in a way that promotes and relects equality in society, but what htey are doing is evidenced by this:
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=47814&in_page_id=34

Maybe one day the laws of this land and the way they are enforced will be there to protect everyone equally.

Lets hope so eh?

If I can bring SWL round to the idea that the police are racist *anything* is possible.

one love

Damn! I wish I wasnt being ironic here.

Re your link.

I don't know where you've been, but the country has been seeing a rise in extremism from one ethnic section of the community, including mass slaughter in London and plots to murder hundreds more. We've also seen a huge rise in gun crime with another section of the community. I would expect the police to focus attention on those who match the descriptions of criminals.

If Nuns start going on the rampage, killing and plotting, I would fully expect to see a rise in investigations of Catholic women.

We should expect the police to investigate criminality and not concern ourselves about unequal demographics. In fact, I believe the last year has seen the police begin to do just that.

Picks up can of worms.

Picks up can opener.

Looks round.

Gets to work...



"New figures show 23 per cent of people whose details have been archived after being arrested but not charged were from an ethnic minority.

That compared with an overall black and Asian population of nine per cent in Britain."

There are some queries I have about these statistics.

1. First of all, 23 per cent of "innocent" DNA samples are from ethnic minorities. Nine per cent of people are black or Asian. How many are oriental? Arab? Jew? Or does "black and Asian" mean "anyone who's not white European"?

2. What proportion of GUILTY DNA samples are from ethnic minorities? This is absolutely crucial context, and is completely omitted from the report.

Example: Anytown has a population of 1000 people, 100 of them black.

There are 100 crimes in Anytown in a year.

CASE A:

Of those 100 crimes, precisely 10 were committed by black people.
For each and every crime the colour of the perpetrator is known, and the police arrested three people who look a bit like them, and charged one. BLACK OR WHITE. Sound fair?

So for ninety crimes, 270 white people arrested. For ten crimes, 30 black people arrested.

Chance of being arrested if you're white? 30%.
Chance of being arrested if you're black? 30%.

Cool.

And now: innocent DNA on file:
White: 180.
Black: 20.

DNA database size: 200. Proportion of black people in it: 10% exactly. Politically correct!

CASE B:

Of the 100 crimes, 20 were known to be committed by black people. Not for racist reasons, this is simply a fact of this hypothetical case. Perhaps due to society's inherent racism, yadda yadda, black people in our pretend town tend to have lower incomes, fewer jobs, greater likelihood of drug dependency, etc. Whatever. They commit more crime, proportionally. Bear with me.

Now... the police again arrest three people who look like the suspect, and charge one.

But now...

For eighty crimes, 240 white people arrested. For twenty crimes, 60 black people arrested.

And now: innocent DNA on file:
White: 160.
Black: 40.

DNA database size: 200. Proportion of black people in it: 20% exactly. Politically incorrect!

But hang on - what proportion of those CHARGED are black? 20% exactly. So the database precisely reflects NOT the proportions in the population, but the proportion of CRIMINALS in the population. If a small section of the population harbours a disproportionate number of those charged, innocent members of that population should EXPECT a disproportionate chance of arrest - assuming the police are doing their job properly.

I hope it's obvious how, without the ethnic data on the people who WERE charged, the data on the people who WEREN'T charged isn't even meaningless, it's actively misleading.



One may debate the reasons, but the fact of the matter is that back in reality, ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in the prison population.

I've seen different figures in different places. One (the Guardian) said: only 2% of the general population is black, but that 16% of the people in prison are black. Another had 5.6% "ethnic", breaking down as 1.8% black, 2.7% Asian, 1.1% "other", but 24.2% of male prisoners and 30.2% of female prisoners are ethnic minorities.

Look at that last set of figures. I got it from the National Body of Black Prisoner Support Groups.

Now, to me, if 23% of people arrested but not charged are black, and 23% of people *in prison* are black, that sounds to me like police are arresting precisely the right number of black people.

As it is, there are actually MORE black people than that in prison. So if anything, this figure suggests that the police are, if anything, not arresting as many black people as the statistics might suggest they should be doing.

"Police arresting disproportionately many white people" doesn't make as interesting a headline, though, it seems.

SoRB

"The last year" you say? Where were you living prior to 2006, under a rock?

If you look at th numbers and I really think you should you'll see that findind the tiny miority of criminals within any ethnic group simply targettting them as by their look is A) wasteful of resources as it doesnt do much to actually stop people and B) counter productive in reducing crime because alienates people from authority and makes them less likely to collaborate with community vigillance against crime. Muslims were getting harrased *before* you had even heard of Al Qaeda. The use of such reasoning gave us policing that gave us great victries for justice like the Birmingham Six.

"The use of such reasoning gave us policing that gave us great victories for justice like the Birmingham Six."

The Birmingham Six were innocent Irishmen.

The actual Birmingham bombers were guilty Irishmen.

The police targetted Irishmen in their inquiries. Are you perhaps suggesting that they should not have?

SoRB

Unfortunately at present in Britain the expression "Not all Asians are terrorists but all terrorists are Asian" pertains.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1731568.stm