http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/world/archives/2011/10/20111024-170825.html

Libyan women raped as spoils of Shariah

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· 5:08 pm, October 24th, 2011

A girl flashes a victory sign as people stand in line to see the body of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Misrata October 21, 2011.

Credits: REUTERS/Saad Shalash

MARK DUNN | PARLIAMENTARY BUREAU

OTTAWA - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird can't guarantee Libya won't return to Stone Age laws and treat women as second-class citizens.

After an eight-month war to liberate the people, the leader of a rag-tag coalition says Shariah law would guide the country in a post-Gadhafi era.

It was unclear how much of the law Mustafa Jalil - a former Gadhafi justice minister - wants to adopt to appease followers of Islam.

But his comments have sparked concerns.

"We didn't send our troops, our pilots to help in the liberation of Libya in order to see any one group in Libyan society oppressed," interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae said. "The liberation of Libya means the liberation of Libyan women as well as Libyan men."

Homa Arjomand of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court in Canada said the wives of men who worked under the Gadhafi regime as pharmacists, teachers and other occupations are already being targeted for rape.

"According to Shariah law, enemies' wives should be raped and they have started raping these women already," Arjomand said.

She said adopting an Islamic state like Iran would mean a lifetime of oppression.

"Women would be segregated from men and would be under complete limitations - from schools, to swimming, to dances, forcing them to marry at a younger age, to putting them in polygamous relationships."

In its most Liberal interpretation, Shariah law prohibits pre-pubescent girls from showing their faces and forces women to wear hijabs in public.

Homosexuals could be executed and adulterers stoned. Men can marry multiple partners.

Baird - one of the first dignitaries to visit Libya during the war and one of the first to recognize the National Transitional Council as the de-facto government - called for caution.

"I suspect we should hold our judgment," he said Monday, two weeks after returning from Libya, where he promoted women's rights.

"Let's see what that (Shariah) will entail. I suspect it won't look like what our conception of Shariah law is in this country."