TEHRAN (Reuters) - Activists should not try to change Islamic laws relating to women's rights, Iran's supreme leader said on Wednesday, two days after one campaigner was reportedly sentenced to 34 months in jail and ten lashes.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei... was addressing a group of women, most dressed conservatively in head-to-toe black chadors, in Tehran ahead of Thursday's anniversary of the birth of Prophet Mohammad's daughter, Fatima, when Iran honors mothers and women.
Campaigners say Iranian women face difficulties in getting a divorce and criticize inheritance laws they say are unjust and the fact their court testimony is worth half that of a man's.
The Islamic Republic rejects allegations it is discriminating against women, saying it follows sharia law.
"We are witnessing in our country that some women activists and some men are trying to play with Islamic laws ... in order to harmonize them with international conventions related to women," Khamenei said. "This is wrong."
"They shouldn't see the solution in changing Islamic jurisprudence laws," Khamenei, Iran's highest authority, was quoted as saying.
But he indicated some Islamic rules regarding women could change if jurisprudence research led to a new understanding, state television said.
The last sentence above, and how it fits with the rest of the message, opens a fascinating inquiry, which has its parallels in Judaism. The Conservative Movement within Judaism, and movements further to the left, have wrought significant changes in their understanding of Jewish law over the past generation. Movement has also taken place, although perhaps more quietly, within some segments of Orthodoxy. It remains to be seen whether the Iranian religious leadership is open to such new understandings.
No comments:
Post a Comment