Important court ruling regarding 'sharia law' in Thrace.

27.03.08-Liberal Alliance press release

Liberal Alliance salutes the important court ruling with great symbolic and substantial significance, from the High Court of Rodopi in Thrace.
This ruling questions the up to now indisputable power of Islamic sharia law for the Muslim minority of Thrace by recognizing equal hereditary rights to the Muslim women with Muslim men.

The court decision rational notes that: ' the judicial power of the mufti could not possibly function towards a direction of the human rights violation of Muslims who are clearly protected by the Greek Constitution, the European Convention of Human Rights, and the supplementary Paris Protocol, applying anachronistic laws that were brought in effect during historically and politically transitional and fluid periods, cannot remove rights and discriminate against Greek Muslim women, thus deviating from the constitutional right for equality between the sexes and the fundamental principle that all citizens should be equal before the law. '

Liberal Alliance is the only political party, that proposes in its manifesto, the 'abolition of Islamic sharia law supremacy in parts of Greece that is still in effect (like Thrace) and that no law should be incompatible with the law of Greece. Law should be applied with no discrimination. Removal of every judicial power from Muslim minorities muftis and limiting their role strictly to their religious duties. The appointment of muftis is an internal matter for the Muslim minority with which the state should not interfere.'

Liberal Alliance emphasizes that the defence of human rights and of freedom of expression of individuals and groups should not be selective and applied arbitrarily but should be comprehensive and entrenched in the institutions within the rule of law and due process.