19 January 2011

Putting the law in Afghan hands

.... Grieve told me he saw female police officers and met a female judge on his visit. "If you go to Kabul, Afghanistan appears to be far less rigid towards women than you might experience elsewhere in the Middle East," he said.

Afghan law is based on the continental civil code backed up by hanafi law, regarded as the most liberal variant of sharia. "There are lots of women with a small headscarf chucked over their heads," Grieve said, "rather than people walking around in burqas or Arab garb, which has not crept into Afghanistan in the way that it probably has into parts of Pakistan – or Bradford." [guardian.co.uk] Read more