One Law for All
| How an Empire ends U.K. Politics |
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| God Save the King? |
“”[W]e can’t build links with far-right groups that are antithetical to ours. Just as we can’t forge links with the Islamists. Our job is to criticize both of them, and mobilize people to oppose them and leave their ranks and to join us. That is politics and if people can’t take the heat, well there is always football hooliganism to return to.
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| —One Law for All spokesperson Maryam Namazie[1] |
One Law for All is a group dedicated to opposing Sharia courts in Britain (and, by extension, any religious courts).[2] The spokesperson is Maryam Namazie (Central Committee member of the Worker-communist Party of Iran).
It argues that Sharia is "arbitrary and discriminatory against women and children in particular," and says that "women are often pressured by their families into going to these courts and adhering to unfair decisions... refusal to settle a dispute in a Sharia court can give rise to threats and intimidation, or at best being ostracised". This argument disregards the fact that coercing someone into an arbitration contract is already illegal pretty much anywhere in the civilized world, thus making this a failure to report the coercion, rather than a failure in the system of arbitration itself. But this does not make any such coercion less damaging. "The existence of a parallel legal system that is denying a large section of the British population their fundamental human rights is scandalous," says spokesperson Maryam Namazi (who is apparently unaware that courts of arbitration are private, and thus not a "parallel legal system"). "Our findings show that it is essential to abolish all religious courts in the UK."
In 2011, the organisation published a report entitled Enemies Not Allies: The Far-Right, which stresses the need to "discriminate between genuine allies and those who would arrogate [anti-Sharia and Islamist] efforts for their own ends, namely the far-right, which has attempted to hijack legitimate criticism of Islamism to further its racist agenda."[3] The report focuses mainly on the British National Party, English Defence League, and Stop the Islamisation of Europe, and concludes that "Though the far-right appears to target Islamism, they are two sides of the same coin," pointing out that both promote misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism, and violence, and make use of religious imagery and victim status.[4]
Robert Spencer of the blog Jihad Watch objected to this report, dismissing Maryam Namazie as "a Marxist antisemite who… has attacked Israel and spread Palestinian jihad propaganda on numerous occasions" and arguing that the report misrepresented his views.[5] Adam Barnett, who co-wrote the report, penned a response to Spencer further questioning his views on the treatment of Muslims.[6]