Pakistan learns horrors of Taliban Shari'a Law

Washington Post:

When black-turbaned Taliban fighters demanded in January that Islamic sharia law be imposed in Pakistan's Swat Valley, few alarm bells went off in this Muslim nation of about 170 million.

Sharia, after all, is the legal framework that guides the lives of all Muslims.

Officials said people in Swat were fed up with the slow and corrupt state courts, scholars said the sharia system would bring swift justice, and commentators said critics in the West had no right to interfere.

Today, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Swat and Pakistani troops launching an offensive to drive out the Taliban forces, the pendulum of public opinion has swung dramatically. The threat of "Talibanization" is being denounced in Parliament and on opinion pages, and the original defenders of an agreement that authorized sharia in Swat are in sheepish retreat.

The refugees are the "victims of ignorant cavemen masquerading as fighters of Islam," columnist Shafqat Mahmood charged in the News International newspaper Friday. He said that the "barbarian horde" that invaded Swat never intended to implement a sharia-based judicial system and that they just used it as cover. "This is a fight for power, not Islam," he wrote.

Such widely expressed views make a clear and careful distinction between the Taliban version of Islam -- often described as narrow-minded, intolerant and punitive -- and what might be called the mainstream Pakistani version of Islam, which is generally described as moderate and flexible.

Pakistan is a vast country with many sects and varieties of Islam, but experts here said most Pakistani Muslims agree that their religion has two complementary aspects. One is a set of unchangeable principles that guide their behavior, values, faith and relationships. The other is a practical application of these principles, which may adapt and evolve according to changing times and conditions, including war, weather, technology and taste.

"Islam is our identity and our system of life, but variety and choice are part of it. People should dress modestly, but women don't have to cover their faces and men don't have to grow long beards," said Khurshid Ahmad, an Islamic scholar and national legislator. "The Koran is very clear that there should be no coercion in religion. You cannot cram it down people's throats. This is where the Taliban destroyed their own case."

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... Pakistan has had bitter experiences with the overzealous application of sharia, especially when it has been combined with force. During the military dictatorship of Mohammed Zia ul-Haq from 1977 to 1988, a system of "Islamization" was imposed that mandated extreme sharia punishments, including stoning and flogging, for committing adultery and drinking alcohol.

These laws, which were known as the Hudood Ordinance and were finally amended and reformed in 2006, inflicted particular suffering on women. For one thing, if a woman tried to accuse a man of rape, she often ended up being found guilty of adultery and punished severely, while the man went free for lack of evidence.

Criticism of such draconian practices, which faded after Zia's death in 1988, has suddenly revived as horror stories of Taliban-style justice have filtered out of the Swat Valley. Newspapers are filled with letters from readers expressing outrage at the perversion of Islam being perpetrated there and warning that the Taliban is trying to force a modern country back to medieval times.

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"With each passing month a deeper silence prevails," columnist Kamila Hyat recently wrote in a widely circulated article. The public is afraid, uncertain and retreating into religion because the country's leaders are failing to address its problems. "Just as we fight to regain territory" from the Taliban, Hyat wrote, "we must struggle to regain the liberties we are losing."

The Taliban's anti freedom agenda includes a barbaric version of Shari'a law. It is one that should be banned for its cruel and unusual punishments. No sane person would want to live under the whims of a Taliban "justice" system that includes Shari'a Law as they interpret it. I would not want to live under any interpretation of it. The US justice system with all its flaws is much more humane and fair.