German minister deems Sharia law acceptable in his country

PanARMENIAN.Net - In an interview with the Berlin tabloid BZ Jochen Hartloff, the interior minister of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, said that Sharia law, in a "modern form," would be acceptable in Germany. In comments published on Friday, Feb 3 in the center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, he added that Islamic moral code "is certainly conceivable when it comes to questions pertaining to civil law."

Hartloff, a politician from the center-left Social Democrats, made clear that he was referring specifically to family law issues such as divorce settlements and alimony, but also certain instances of contract law in which devout Muslims seek to avoid paying interest. Applying Sharia rules, he said, could help avoid hostility in such cases.

Reaction, perhaps predictably, has not been entirely supportive. Jörg-Uwe Hahn, the justice minister in the state of Hesse, lambasted Hartloff, said that "German courts are here responsible for the law. We don't need special Islamic courts."

He was seconded by Stephan Mayer, a parliamentarian for the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats. Mayer, a legal expert, demanded Hartloff's resignation. "It is inconceivable that a justice minister fosters such ideas," he said.

"There is no room in Germany for Islamic law. The Sharia is barbarous and inhuman in all its forms."

Many Westerners associate Sharia law with the kinds of brutal punishments meted out to criminals in places like Saudi Arabia, such as stoning for adultery and chopping off the hands of thieves. But some elements of the Sharia are much less horrifying, regulating such mundane social conflicts as divorce cases and property dispute, Spiegel Online reported.