Posted by
Daniel Crandall on Thursday, March 22, 2007 11:32:58 PM
My jaw hit the desk as I read, over at
The New Criterion's blog Armavirumque, about a German divorce case. It concerns a a presumably Muslim Moroccan woman divorcing her presumably Muslim Moroccan husband who was physically abusing her. The German court decision actually cited the
Koran as a source to
NOT allow an expedited divorce.
Der Speigel reports:
"A 26-year-old mother of two wanted to free herself from what had become
a miserable and abusive marriage. The police had even been called to
their apartment to separate the two -- both of Moroccan origin -- after
her husband got violent in May 2006. The husband was forced to move
out, but the terror continued: Even after they separated, the spurned
husband threatened to kill his wife.
"A quick divorce seemed to be the only solution -- the 26-year-old was
unwilling to wait the year between separation and divorce mandated by
German law. ... Her lawyer, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk agreed and she filed for immediate
divorce with a Frankfurt court last October. They both felt that the
domestic violence and death threats easily fulfilled the "hardship"
criteria necessary for such an accelerated split.
"The judge rejected the application for a speedy divorce by referring to a passage in the Koran ... "The exercise of the right to castigate does not fulfill the hardship
criteria as defined by Paragraph 1565 (of German federal law)," the
daily Frankfurter Rundschau quoted the judge's letter as saying. It
must be taken into account, the judge argued, that both man and wife
have Moroccan backgrounds."
The New Criterion gets it exactly right, as it cites the British "colonialist" response to the barbaric Indian practice, at the time, of burning wives alive when with the body of the deceased husband. As Sir Charles Napier wrote,
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have
a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks
and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters
will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will
follow ours."
It's bad enough that so many Muslims are adamant in living as if this were the 6th Century. It's worse when that is encouraged by a so called enlightened judiciary in "modern" Europe.