Muslim Woman Sparks Debate With 'Apartheid' Remarks

This is just a taste of what Islamic law (shari'a) is all about. Personal freedoms, especially for women are reduced or eliminated completely.

(CNSNews.com) - Malaysia is considered one of the most moderate nations in the Muslim world, but the daughter of a former prime minister has sparked a row by comparing discrimination against Muslim women in her country with the treatment of black South Africans under apartheid.
"As non-Muslim women catch up with women in the rest of the world, Muslim women here are only going backwards," Marina Mahathir wrote in a newspaper column.
Mahathir, a women's rights and HIV/AIDS campaigner, was referring to new family laws that will make it easier for Muslim men in Malaysia to take multiple wives and claim property after divorce.
Under Islamic law (shari'a), Malaysian Muslim men already are allowed up to four wives. But the new legislation will give them more rights to claim assets after divorcing a wife, to seize property belonging to existing wives, and lessen their obligation to pay maintenance.
Organizations that came out against the proposals were attacked for promoting "western"-style gender equality, and parliament passed the legislation at the end of last year.
In multi-ethnic Malaysia, where Muslims comprise about 60 percent of the population, the proposed new laws will only apply to Muslims.
Mahathir wrote that, more than a decade after apartheid had ended in South Africa, an "insidious" form of discrimination was developing in Malaysia, between Muslim and non-Muslim women.
"Non-Muslim Malaysian women have benefited from more progressive laws over the years while the opposite has happened for Muslim women," she said.
The article was due for publication last Wednesday, International Women's Day, but The Star newspaper - for which she has long been a regular columnist - held it because of the controversial content.
Mahathir then published it on the Internet, with a note saying: "For the first time in some 17 years, The Star is refusing to publish my column ... they said that the powers-that-be there think it's too tough on the government and it's not the right platform etc."
The column eventually was published on Friday.

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