Netherlands: Gays try to exploit minors, get extorted by Moroccans

The minors who extorted money from gays in the area of Bergen op Zoom in the Netherlands, apparently did so to dozens of victims. Five victims lodged complaints by the police, but according to the local branch of the gay interest organization COC, many of the victims don’t dare go to the police.

According to Peter Verhaegh, chairman of the COC in Bergen op Zoom, the victims tried to contact minor boys on the internet. Since that’s criminal, many victims are reluctant to lodge complaints, he said Friday.

Verhaegh says that anonymous reports show that the Moroccan perpetrators had victims from all over the Netherlands and Belgium. Dozens were victimized.

The men contacted the three 16-year-olds via chat-sites. Two of them are currently in custody. In the area of Bergen op Zoom they were then confronted with the printouts of the chats with the minors and threatened that those would be handed over to the police.

The victims were then forced to draw out money and in some cases hand over their watches and phones too. In some cases they lost 750 euro.

Source: Trouw (Dutch)

EU: Islam in Europe now has strong local leadership

Via The National:

There are major changes underway for Muslims in Europe. They go beyond threats to ban the burqa in France or plans to build the largest mosque on the continent in Marseille. They go beyond the Dutch elections last month, which doubled the number of parliamentarians from the anti-Islam Freedom Party.

What is more momentous is the birth of a homegrown form of Islam, an indigenous approach to practising the religion in today’s Europe.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

And a Dutch imam is leading the way. Himself a product of a cultural melange, Mohammed Cheppih was raised in a family of Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands. Having learnt his faith at the knee of community elders, Imam Cheppih, 33, now believes that it is time for a homegrown form of Islam that is true to the cultural mores of the country that he and many other young Muslims consider their home.

“I personally got fed up with religion promoted by others,” he told me over coffee in downtown Beirut during a recent trip to the region. “Culturally, it is not what I believe.”

He is no stranger to challenging conventional thinking. During his religious training at university in Saudi Arabia, his ideas about Islam’s role in the West rattled more than a few cages. “I was always under threat for being kicked out of school for questioning and debating everything,” he said.

Similarly the religious texts that are available in the Netherlands are usually translated from abroad, with little relevance to everyday life in his home country. It is a deficit that many critics have identified. Muslim communities in Europe often lack well-trained imams with a local connection who can truly engage both the Muslim and European aspects of a community, especially the youth.

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Netherlands: Muslims upset pig picture was removed

About a month ago, a Muslim local councilor in the city of Venray got upset at a sculpture depicting a pig, and demanded that the feelings of Muslims be taken into account in the future.

Is it that preposterous, then, to assume that Muslims would be insulted by a picture of a pig? It’s a no-win situation for non-Muslims. It would be interesting to see how the SMN responds next time a Muslim will complain about pig depictions. Unless I missed it, last time they did not say a word.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

The Dutch Moroccan Alliance (SMN) is ‘furious’ about the decision of the Linge Polyclinic in Leerdam to remove a picture of a pig because it would suuposedly insult Muslims.

On Thrusday the clinic said that they hang picutres for them to be pleasing and that they are no interseted in problems. A spokesperson said they get visitors of all kinds, and that therefore they removed the artwork if they get complaints.

The clinic removed the picture after a non-Muslim patient complained and said that it would offend Muslims.

Nonsense, says Habib El Kaddaoui of the SMN. “”Most Muslims are not offended at all by it,” he told AD Friday. “They have been living here for thirty, forty years, and know that the majority do eat pork. Moreover, many Muslims have worked in slaughterhouses where pigs were also slaughtered.”

(Photo, AD)

El Kaddaoui says that just a small group of ultra-orthodox Muslims might have trouble with such a pig. The ethnic Dutch complainer might have meant well, but complaining in the name of Muslims wasn’t useful.

It says the wrong message, says El Kaddaoui. It’s not prudent to think and feel for others, and the clinic went along with it.

Maurits Berger, an Islam researcher from Leiden, also doesn’t understand the exaggerated understanding position of the clinic. “This went too far. Muslims don’t eat pigs because they’re impure animals, but pictures are not impure.”

Despite all this, the clinic does not regret removing the picture. They just wanted to solve the complaint. Artist Sylvia Bosch is surprised that the pig picture won’t be returned. “We’re living in the Netherlands, aren’t we? You don’t expect such things here.”

Source: Elsevier (Dutch)

Netherlands: New site for critical self-reflection on Islam

A group of Islamic ‘contemporary thinkers’ launched a new website today in order to develop ‘critical (self)-reflection’ in the Muslim communities in the Netherlands.

The Nieuwemoskee site [New Mosque] wants to break down rigid ideas about Islam and add depth to the fierce, but mostly oversimplified, Islam debate.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

Reflections about the difficulty of Islam to nestle in Western society are often due to simplicity, according to the founders. In Islamic circles you often hear argument such as ‘they understand Islam wrongly’. Or ‘We Muslims aren’t doing good, but Islam is perfect.” While Islam-critics rigorously bring up old filth about the religion, in their view, Islam is the problem.

“With a comment like ‘you don’t understand Islam well’ you kill any discussion,” says Ceylan Pektas-Weber, one of the four editors of Nieuwemoskee. “We’re looking for fresh, new arguments that you won’t read in newspapers, and that you don’t hear in the political debate.”

Pektas-Weber, former chairman of the Islamic women’s organization Al Nisa, says that one example of ‘a new way of thinking’ is discussions with the Pakistani-American Muslim feminist Asma Barlas. She’s the author of ‘Believing Women in Islam’, in which she focuses on a patriarchal exegesis of the Koran. “Barlas says, for example, that the fact that during Revelation a patriarchal society is assumed, doesn’t automatically mean that male domination should remain part of Islam,” says Pektas-Weber, independent consultant and publicist in the field of emancipation and Islam.

The other editors, all Muslims, are Kamel Essabane, Arnold Yasin Mol and Rashied Alibux. Essabane works as a municipal engineer and studies philosophy and religion in modern society. Mol, who converted to Islam when he was 20, is co-founder of the international Islamic think-tank Deen Research Center (DRC) and has solid theological schooling. Alibux is former editor of the Islamic broadcaster NMO. Science, environment, identity, philosophy and criticism of religion are some of the main subjects that will be dealt with on the site.

In the future there will be a blog team, to which non-Muslims will also be invited. Contributions of Islam-critics are welcome. Even from PVV leader Geert Wilders. Pektas-Weber: “There is a condition though that his piece will be built on arguments that comply with our criteria, that in addition to being critical, will also refreshing.”

The name of the site goes back to the earliest period of Islam, when the mosque, besides being a place for prayer, was also a place where Muslims (men and women) met to discuss various ideas, problems and concerns. According to the founders, there were also regular discussions with non-Muslims and ambassadors from various cultures were received. They hope that the Nieuwemoskee will develop into such a platform, in modern clothing.

Source: Volkskrant (Dutch)

Netherlands: Campaign against smuggling Barbary Apes

Every spring hundreds of baby Barbary Apes are sold in Moroccan markets to European Moroccans on vacation.

(AAP, Barbary Ape dumped in the Netherlands)

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

Many of the animals are then brought back home by car. Many times people take pity on the animals and think they’ll have a better life in the Netherlands. Often the monkeys destroy property and are then dumped by the AAP (anti-animal smuggling foundation). The foundation told local broadcaster AT5 that in Amsterdam every year a couple Barbary Apes are dumped.

“In combination with losing their habitat, the number of Barbary Apes dropped dramatically in the past 30 years to a frightfully small number of just 3,000 animals,” says a spokesperson.

AAP has started a campaign in southern Spain, at a number of parking places from where ferries leave for Morocco.

Source: AT5 (Dutch)

Netherlands: ‘Allah be with Oranje’

The Union of Moroccan Mosques in Amsterdam and the Area (UMMAO) wishes Oranje, the Dutch football team, success in the World Cup’s final match.

In a press release the UMMAO says they ‘also want to give our boys of Oranje a word of appreciation, support and pride! the Dutch team, a culturally and religiously diverse team, that should serve as an example for the world. This is the true Netherlands!”

(photo)

“Diverse, sportive and result oriented! We are proud of that! We wish our boys a lot of success with the final match during the World Cup in South Africa. Allah be with Oranje!”

Source: AD (Dutch)

Netherlands: Muslim orgs to boycott Israeli dates

A large number of Muslim organizations, including the Council of Dutch Moroccan Mosques (RMMN), the Islamic Foundation of the Netherlands (ISN) and Milli Görüs are urging Dutch Muslims not to buy Israeli dates during Ramadan.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

The protest campaign will be launched Friday after the Friday prayers at the Ulu mosque in the Utrecht neighborhood of Lombok, the organizations announced on Tuesday. The boycott is a response to the Israeli attack on the aid convoy for the Palestinians in late May. Nine activists were killed in the raid and several dozen were wounded, including two Dutch.

The launch is a month before the beginning of the Ramadan. During the month of fasting, Muslims eat a date with milk after the daily fast, in the tradition of the prophet Mohammed.

Source: Telegraaf (Dutch)

Netherlands/Belgium: The link between crime and ethnicity

In the Netherlands, half the Moroccan youth get in trouble with the police by the time they’re 22. A third of this group are repeat offenders with more than 5 incidents on their record, according to a new study published in the recent issue of the Tijdschrift voor Criminologie (Journal of Criminology).

To the surprise of the authors, it turns out Moroccan girls commit three times as many crimes as Dutch girls. An multiple offenders are on average not more violent than people who commit a crime every now and then. According to another study in the same issue of TVC, asylum migrants commit more crimes than ethnic Dutch or regular migrants. An evaluation of of both studies, and the question is whether this study can be generalized for Belgium. Not so.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

The link between ethnicity and studying criminality is a sensitive issue. Registration of somebody’s ethnic background soon brings charges of ‘racism’. In Belgium there are no studies about this issue, but in the Netherlands there are. TVC devoted an entire issue to this subject.

A new study by Arjan Blokland, Kim Grimbergen, Wim Bernasco and Paul Nieuwbeerta is central. They followed everybody who was born in the Netherlands in 1984 (!) until they were 22. They checked how many times these people got in trouble with the police for a crime.

Such a study was never done before. Though it did appear already before that that the number of immigrants in the annual group of suspects in the Netherlands is twice as big as their part in the population. And also that about a third of all registered crimes in the Netherlands are committed by a non-Western immigrants. And you had another study by the city of Rotterdam, which showed that in 2007, more than half of the Moroccans in Rotterdam aged 18-24 got in trouble with the police at least once for a crime. The recidivism in this group is around 90%. These studies were snapshots and could therefore be biased. Never before was a complete birth ‘cohort’ (a group from a certain birth year which is followed for years) from across the Netherlands followed. That did occur now.

RESULTS

What are the most important results?

* 14% of these youth from 1984 got in trouble with the police at least once. Among Dutch men that was 20%, among Moroccan men 54%.

* Immigrant youth got in trouble with the police for a crime more than ethnic Dutch. This is true for all immigrant groups (Moroccans, Turks, Antilleans, Surinamese..)

* Moroccan boys are on average the youngest when they were first registered (17.6). The average starting age for Dutch men is 18.5. Moroccan boys also got in trouble with the police most often, on average (4.1 times).

* Turkish men commit mostly violent crimes, Dutch men are registered for destruction, disturbing the public order and traffic offense. Moroccan men commit property crimes.

* 5.4% of all girls born in 1984 got in trouble with the police at least once as perpetrators. For Dutch girls that was 4.5%, for Moroccan girls 16.6% (3.7 times as many). In the crime statistics, not only are Moroccan boys overrepresented by also Moroccan girls. This finding undermines the widespread idea that Moroccan girls are much better behaved than Moroccan boys. By Moroccan girls the crimes were mostly property crimes (presumably shoplifting) and very little violence. Girls from all backgrounds are less violent than boys.

With the group of criminal girls, Surinamese and Antillean girls commit percentage wise three times as many violent property crimes as Dutch girls.

* What’s the situation with repeat offenders? The authors define anybody who was registered more than five times for a crime as a repeat offender. Among men, that was 3.4% of all men born in 1984, or 14.9% of all criminals in this group. But the differences between the ethnicities are great. For Dutch men, it’s 12.8% of all criminals, for Moroccan men it’s 32.3%, almost three times as many. Most repeat offenders committed at least one violent crime, but in general their criminal career is not more violent than that of other criminals. The latter also surprised the authors.

Repeat offending is a man’s thing: the number of men who do it is 11 times the number of women who do it. However, it’s remarkable that the percentage of repeat offenders among Moroccan girls (7.4% of all female criminals) is twice as high as that of ethnic Dutch (4.8%). In total, barely 0.3% of all women born in 1984 is a repeat offender, and the same goes for 5.4% of all female criminals.

* Delinquent immigrants are more violent than delinquent ethnic Dutch. That is true both for one-time criminals and for multiple offenders.

* The Turks are most like the Dutch, though they too commit more crimes and are more violent than the Dutch.

EXPLANATIONS

The authors don’t bring any real explanation. They do discuss all possible options.

* They say that the cultures and religions of these groups differ enormously. Therefore, the explanatory factor can’t be that.

* The lower social-economic position of all immigrants certainly plays a role, for three reasons:

- Because in the lower circles have more negative “role models” (people who made it socially thanks to crime) than in the higher ones.

- Because the process of becoming an adult takes longer, and therefore the “criminal transition in puberty” also drags on longer and the risk is greater that this criminality would be lasting.

- Because various social factors can have negative neurological effects for small children, which encourage aggression.

But.. the lower social-economic position is not the decisive factor, since Dutch from the same low social class get in trouble with the police less for crimes than immigrants from that class.

* Being well or badly integrated in Dutch society also plays a small role. It’s been suggested that for Moroccan boys, the criminal group is better integrated than the not-criminal group. Moroccans with a strong focus on the Netherlands are often more frustrated that they can’t realize their desires from their disadvantaged position than Moroccans who aren’t focused on the Netherlands, say the authors.

* Social control does seem to be an important factor. This social control plays out both in the family and in the community. Social control could explain why Turks score so ‘well’: the Netherlands has a strong Turkish community, but that doesn’t apply to the Moroccans. Moreover, the Turks see petty crimes as “losing face” and that doesn’t apply to the Moroccans.

And yet, social control can’t explain everything either, since Moroccan girls are highly controlled, probably more than Dutch girls, certainly in their family, and they also score extremely high in the statistics.

* Does registration by the police play a role? A study from 1999 showed that there is little evidence that immigrants are treated differently than ethnic Dutch by the Dutch police. The fact that HALT cases (alternative sentences for petty crimes by minors who confessed) aren’t included in the statistics, since in such cases there’s no record, can mean that the number of ethnic Dutch is underestimated, because this group is over-represented in HALT. And the policy to focus on certain disadvantaged neighborhoods and repeat offenders can lead to an over-representation of Moroccans.

On the other hand, it seems that the differences between immigrant and ethnic Dutch are even bigger in studies in which everybody says which crimes they’ve committed, than in the police statistics. And so the effect of the registration factor could be limited.

The authors conclude that linking ethnicity and risk-factors for criminals on individual, neighborhood or social levels is a complex issue. “The danger exists that people will see ethnicity and culture as an explanatory factor, while ethnicity is just a social category which at best refers to other underlying causes,” they argue.

CRIMINALITY OF ASYLUM MIGRANTS

In the same issue of TVC Jan de Boom, Erik Snel and Godfried Engbersen published a study about the link between ‘asylum migration’ and crime. They checked how many asylum migrants were suspected of a crime in 2004.

Asylum migrants include both asylum seekers and recognized refugees, even those who got Dutch citizenship. Also rejected asylum seekers (ie, illegals) are included in the term ‘asylum migrants’.

3.4% of the recognized refugees were registered as suspects in 2004. This figure increased to 5.4% among asylum seekers (who were still in the process) and 10% of rejected asylum seekers. There more crime among asylum migrants – with an average of 5.1% suspects – than among ethnic Dutch and regular migrant groups, say the authors. In 2004, 1.5% of all ethnic Dutch were registered as suspects, 6% of Moroccans and 7.5% of Antilleans. But the data is difficult to compare, because asylum migrants are a specific group: (then still) mostly young men with strong social frustration and deprivation.

Mostly it’s petty property crimes (16% committed a single theft or shoplifting, 9% a robbery), and forgery (using false documents). According to the authors it’s notable that the worse the legal status of an asylum migrant, the higher their criminality.

AND BELGIUM?

What’s the situation in Belgium? We don’t know. In the Netherlands you can register the ethnic origin of perpetrators and suspects, compare databases and do scientific research on this subject. In Belgium – mostly due to the pressure of the PS (Socialists) and the privacy commission – not yet. In Belgium just recording somebody’s ethnic origin is ‘racist’ for some groups.

The few studies about the over-representation of foreigners (in Belgian studies that’s mostly people with a foreign nationality), the crime statistics in Belgium are invariably focused on possible police and court racism and on social exclusion. Cultural explanatory models are taboo here. As the reactions to the studies of Marion and San showed..

Comparisons between Belgium and the Netherlands and generalizations from one country to another should be done carefully. For multiple reasons:

- The Netherlands has certain groups of immigrants (Surinamese, Antilleans) that Belgium doesn’t. Belgium does have others (Congolese, Black Africans). These groups have different cultures and can’t be all thrown together. It should be said that the Dutch study of Blokland and co was about people who were born in 1984 in the Netherlands. This means that a number of ethnic groups now present in the Netherlands and Belgium (Russians, Kosovars, Serbs) weren’t included, since in 1984 they were behind the Iron Curtain.

- In Belgium a study like that of Blokland and co isn’t yet possible, because our country only has such crime statistics since 2000. So it’s not that simple.

- Integration is different. Moroccans are probably better integrated in the Netherlands than in Belgium. The employment percentage in the Netherlands is any case higher than here. In Belgium unemployment among immigrant youth in Brussels is up to 50%. It’s not clear what role this plays in criminality.

- The dutch police works – at least on the local level – more efficiently and professionally than the Belgian police. It’s not clear what the results could be: more registration of Moroccan suspects (through possible racism) or less (due to no-go-areas)?

If the Belgian police and courts are more racist than their Dutch counterparts is doubtful. A study by the Comité P showed that just 16.4% of the complaints lodged against the Belgian police for racism between 2005 and the end of 2008, were founded. And the only study about possible discrimination in the detention of Moroccans – the study by Dr. Walter De Pauw from the Department for Criminal Policy about the handling of drug crimes – showed that there was no discrimination.

The scientific study of the link ethnicity-crime is still unexplored terrain in Belgium. TVC explains the big difference between Belgium and the Netherlands by the ‘tendency of the government to keep the crime problem in relationship to migrants out of the discussion’. TVC moreover thinks that ‘The Belgian migration debate threatens to be reduced to a debate about Islam. That debate drives apart supporters and opponents and doesn’t only disturb the social dialog between population groups, but also the climate in which scientific research is done.’

But the Belgian attitude is more the rule than the exception in the West. According to TVC, the crime-migration relationship can only be spoken of in England if it’s brought up as a question of selective policing, racism and deprivation. Germany is very cautious about studies about people’s ethnic background since WWII, and in France there are only French, no Frenchmen with another ethnic origin.

However wants to have a crime policy, both preventive and repressive, must abandon these taboos. The fact that the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism is now asking for ethnic registration (specifically to research the social evolution of regularized illegals) is a positive sign.

See: TIJDSCHRIFT VOOR CRIMINOLOGIE, Criminaliteit, migratie en etniciteit, 2010, (52)2, Boom Juridische Uitgevers, Den Haag

Source: John De Wit, GvA (Dutch)

Netherlands: Muslims, PVV share dislike of gays

The acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands is growing. Religious Protestants and Muslims have the most difficulty with it. Looking at political preference, PVV voters in particular are negative towards gays.

Those are some of the findings from a report of the SCP (Institute for Social Research) about the acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands. The study, conducted for former minister Ronald Plasterk (Emancipation), was presented Thursday. In 2008, says the SCP, 9% of the people had a negative attitude towards homosexuality, compared to 15% in 2006.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

The report devotes considerable attention to religious and ethnic minorities. In addition there’s a separate SCP publication about homosexuality in Protestant Netherlands. Homosexuality is a very sensitive here here, but in religious-Protestant and, to a lesser degree, in “bevindelijk” Reformed circles, there are, according to the SCP, ‘careful positive changes relating to homosexuality’. Among Evangelical Christians, gay-emancipation is impeded, because many there don’t accept homosexuality as a given, says the report.

Among the immigrant Dutch, half see homosexuality as a lack of respect and loyalty to the family. Moroccan, Turkish, Chinese and, to a lesser degree, also Surinamese gays sometimes don’t out themselves, because they would then cause disrepute to the whole family.

The SCP also checked the relationship between political preferences and gay-acceptance. A negative gay attitude is most common among PVV voters (11%), followed by CDA (9%), and the VVD (5%).

Supporters of GroenLinks (Greens) and the SP (Socialists) are the least negative towards homosexuality. The data for small parties such as the ChristianUnion and SGP (religious Christians) aren’t known, since there were too few supporters in the test sample. There does seem to be a correlation to belonging to a church. The SCP says that of those who go to a church every week, 34% have a negative attitude towards homosexuality, compared to 4% among those who don’t belong to a church.

Source: Nederlands Dagblad (Dutch)

Norway: Sharia courts a possibility

In the UK, local Sharia councils have been operating for many years, but in 2007 the Muslim Arbitration Tribunals (MAT) were established. Recognized by the UK’s justice ministry and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Sharia councils were officially allowed to judge in civil – not criminal – cases, based on the British Arbitration Act of 1996. They judge cases relating to economy, divorce, domestic violence, inheritance and forced marriage – with the framework of British law.

“It’s probable that this will exist in Norway. It wouldn’t surprise me if it already exists. Imams counsel Muslims today, and it’s natural that they use Sharia because it’s the legal tradition they’re accustomed to,” says director Tor Langbach of the Courts Administration.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

In the spring he visited the Muslim Arbitration Tribunals in London. There more and more Muslims solve conflicts using Islamic law instead of going to British courts. The headquarters are in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford and Nuneaton. MAT say they’re working on setting up a new branch in Scotland. Currently they have not received inquiries from Norway, but were visited by Muslims from both Belgium and the Netherlands.

On their website, MAT assures that they offer ‘a real and true opportunity to settle disputes in accordance with Islamic Sacred Law with the knowledge that the outcome as determined by MAT will be binding and enforceable’. This requires that both parties want it.

The critics fear parallel legal systems. They think that women are at risk of being pressured by their family or others in their community to solve conflicts via the Sharia council instead of British law, because women end up more badly than men in Islamic legislation. Women, for example, inherit half of what men do. Divorce isn’t as easy for women to obtain.

Norwegian imams use also much of their time giving counsel, says Senaid Kobilica, head of the Islamic Council of Norway (IRN), and chief imam of the Bosnian community. The imams that Aftenposten spoke to can see Sharia councils like those in the UK – within the framework of Norwegian law.

Ten years ago Islam expert Kari Vogt wrote in the book “Islam in Norwegian” (Islam på norsk) that the question isn’t whether Islamic law is applied, but how, by whom and in which cases. According to Vogt, the IRN took the initiative to set up Sharia councils in Norway, but the time wasn’t ripe.

Senaid Kobilica says that the IRN didn’t consider the matter in principle nor taken a position on an eventual mandate or guidelines for such a body. He stresses that it would eventuality have to harmonize with Norwegian law.

He thinks that the British system is in reality not different than the counseling and mediation bodies which can also function as arbitration bodies if both parties want it to.

Kobilica says that such mediation bodies could systemize and ensure the quality of the work which is already being done by the mosques.

The Moroccan Faith-Society and the World Islamic Mission (WIM) say that Sharia councils per the British models are the way to go, but they stress that Norwegian law must have the last word. The imam in Minhaj-Ul-Quran, Sadagat Ali, can also see Sharia councils. Imam Najeeb Naz of WIM points out that Sharia enjoins Muslims to respect the laws of the country in which they live.

“For me as a Muslim in Norway, it’s Norwegian law which applies, but we should take Sharia into account,” says Jamal Moussaoui, head of the Moroccan Faith-Society.

Norwegian judges and courts also increasingly note that Sharia is an important part of the life of Muslims. PhD student Katja Jansen Fredriksen of Bergen reviewed cases which went through the Norwegian legal system.

“Sharia is resorted to in Norwegian law today too. In Norwegian court decisions, especially in family cases, I see that Muslims argue in the same way in Norwegian courts as they would in Sharia courts in Muslim countries.”

For example, the judge, in order to invalidate a forced marriage, has to know if the marriage was entered into legally in the country where the marriage ceremony was performed. Fredriksen wanted to create a guide to Sharia for Norwegian judges.

Source: Aftenposten (Norwegian)