Ontario won't become the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of Islamic law to settle family disputes after the premier of the Canadian province said on Sunday that he won't allow it.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty also said he will move to ban all religious arbitration.
"There will be no Shariah law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians," McGuinty told the Canadian Press.
A proposal to let Ontario residents to use Islamic law for settling family disputes drew protests last Thursday in Canada and at some of its diplomatic sites in Europe.
Ontario's provincial government has been reviewing a report recommending that sharia be allowed to settle Muslim family disputes such as divorce, and had said it would soon make a decision.
Ontario, the most populous province in Canada, has allowed Catholic and Jewish faith-based tribunals to settle family law matters on a voluntary basis since 1991. The practice got little attention until Muslim leaders demanded the same rights.
Officials had to decide whether to exclude one religion, or whether to scrap the religious family courts altogether.
McGuinty said they "threaten our common ground," and promised his Liberal government would introduce legislation as soon as possible to outlaw them in Ontario.
"Ontarians will always have the right to seek advice from anyone in matters of family law, including religious advice," he said. "But no longer will religious arbitration be deciding matters of family law."
Homa Arjomand, a women's rights activist who organized last Thursday's series of protests, was elated.
"I think our voice got heard loud and clear, and I thank the government for coming out with no faith-based arbitration's," Arjomand said. "Oh, I am so happy. That was the best news I have ever heard for the past five years."
Just hours before McGuinty's announcement, a group including prominent Canadian author Margaret Atwood and actress Shirley Douglas issued an open letter to the premier on behalf of the No Religious Arbitration Coalition.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS