The Beginning, and the End

Yesterday I attended a conference on 'The Right to Privacy in Iran and in Europe from a Comparative Perspective' at the British Institute for International and Comparative Law' in Russell Square.

It was interesting seeing the Iranian academics at the meeting reciting the provisions protecting privacy available in Iranian law, only to invariably close their speeches with more or less the same disclaimer - 'of course, this is all in theory, practice is another matter altogether', at once dismissing their entire discourse. I felt an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the official line in Iran, not yet articulate or courageous enough to be expressed in the open. More like an intuition that things are going wrong. The discussions reflected the existence of an underground debate in Iran on issues such as human rights, a sign showing that the fundamentalism of the clerics has not managed to entirely paralyse independent thinking.

I thought the discussions about the intersection between Shariah and positive law were captivating as a theoretical proposition. Shariah might work as a source of law, one of many, but not the one source that trumps all others as is currently the case around the Muslim world. One of the many reasons is that its ancient dicta is prone to many interpretations, and as such, can be read to mean different things by a terrorist or by a human rights lawyer.

You might be aware of the scandal in Sudan these days in relation to the British aid worker sentenced to 15 days imprisonment and deportation for having named a teddy bear 'Mohammad'. Angry mobs waving swords rallied in Khartoum asking for her execution for having insulted the Prophet. In this regard, article 20 of the Iranian Constitution says it all about the distinction between theory and practice, and about the difficulty of preaching the human rights cause in Shariah Land:

Article 20

All citizens of the country, both men and women, equally enjoy the protection of the law and enjoy all human, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, in conformity with Islamic criteria.