Americans can get a glimpse of the kinds of challenges an ever-growing Muslim population will present to Americans by watching carefully what is happening in the UK and Europe, where Islam is more deeply entrenched.
A new report by the human rights organization, One Law for All, has found Sharia Councils and Muslim Arbitration Tribunals to be in violation of UK law, public policy and human rights.

You can download the report, free, here:

http://www.onelawforall.org.uk/new-report-sharia-law-in-britain-a-threat-to-one-law-for-all-and-equal-rights/

Based on an 8 March 2010 Seminar on Sharia Law, research, interviews, and One Law for All case files, the report has identified a number of problem areas with Sharia Law.

The report was released at the time of a 20 June 2010 “One Law for All” rally on the issue of Sharia law.

Below are a few photos of Pro-Sharia counter-demonstrators who showed up at the rally (coming to your streets soon?).

Highlights of the rally:

Human rights activist Gita Sahgal:

“I think it is highly significant that in Britain there has been silence where there should have been condemnation. There is active support for ‘Sharia laws’ precisely because it is limited to denying women rights in the family. No hands are being cut off, so there can’t be a problem.

This campaign stands at the heart of a debate over the future of Britain. It also stands at the heart of global attempts to destroy the most basic rights, to invade liberty and to crush equality and to do this in the name of upholding and promoting human rights. We stand here today facing down forces of racism and fundamentalism as we struggle for secularism.”

Maryam Namazie:

“The fight against Sharia law is a fight against Islamism not Muslims, immigrants and people living under Sharia here or elsewhere. So it is very apt for the Islamists to hold a counter-demonstration against our rally. This is where the real battleground lies.”

MC Fariborz Pooya of the Iranian Secular Society:

“The One Law for All Campaign has brought to centre stage an important debate about the kind of society we want to live in whilst defending the rights of everyone irrespective of religion, race, nationality…; this Campaign is truly the voice of the voiceless.”

Anna Waters of One Law for All’s Legal Team:

“Any reasonable interpretation of the Human Rights Act shows us that there are certain things that it doesn’t allow – and one of the things it doesn’t allow is for a woman to have an inferior or second class status when she stands before a judge in a court of law. This is exactly what is happening…”

Gerard Phillips of the National Secular Society:

[Sharia Law is] “nothing less than an attack on human rights and on equality…It undermines our democracy. It must be opposed.”

The rally was held on 20 June to mark the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan at a protest in Tehran last year and link the fight against Sharia in the UK with that in Iran and elsewhere.

The supporters of One Law for All are non-violent warriors, working to protect those who can’t protect themselves – at a very real risk to themselves. I admire their courage. Do you think the threat of Sharia law could never happen in America? It is already happening in the UK, in Europe, and in Canada.