Women must be freed from religious fury

Frida Ghitis, Author, 'The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the, Age of Live Television', Los Angeles Times

Imagine being stoned to death for having sex outside of marriage. Such may be the fate of 30-year-old Amina Lawal in northern Nigeria, whose appeal to an Islamic court was rejected Monday. Her lawyers said they planned to appeal to a higher court. As Lawal, sinking into despair, clutched her baby to her chest, the magnanimous Islamic court ruled that the execution will occur after the baby's breastfeeding days come to an end.

The faithful praised the upholding of the sentence as a victory for Islam and for Islamic law, or Sharia. Once again, the harsh interpretation of ancient rules came down hardest on women. (The man Lawal named as the father of her girl was acquitted for lack of evidence.)

In too many Muslim countries, women remain second-class citizens, with many of their basic rights denied in the name of religion and tradition. The right to vote, drive, work, walk in the street without a man or receive a meaningful education are denied or curtailed to different degrees.

This is not true of every predominantly Muslim nation. The democratically elected president of Indonesia, for example, is a woman, as is the prime minister of Bangladesh. Neither is the situation universal in Arab countries. In virtually every Arab country, men have a tight grip on power, but women don't always live in total subjugation. Where there is more education -- education beyond the study of the Koran -- women tend to have more rights.

But practices such as so-called "honor killings," in which women who bring shame to their families face horrifying fates at the hands of male relatives, are still practiced. Any attempt to point out the plight of Muslim women brings a predictable outcry, often from Muslim women, that we in the West fail to understand their culture and religion and that we should not try to impose our ethnocentric values on them.

But ask Lawal if she wants the world to respect the ancient, excruciating practice of death by stoning.

The fact is that many followers of the Islamic faith maintain that these practices are outside the teachings of their religion. The Muslim Women's League says the holy book explicitly states that women are equal to men and "the prevailing view that devalues and belittles women is derived from sociocultural factors that are derived by a distorted and erroneous interpretation" of their religion.

The issue is not one of freedom to practice religion. It is a matter of human dignity and human rights. The holy texts of Christianity and Judaism include a few choice passages that would send chills down our spines were they to become law in today's world. The truth is that even the most devout followers of those religions are selective about what they enforce. Our creed today is that women are full human beings, entitled to freedoms equal to those of men. The definition of that equality may vary from home to home, but the basic concept has been enshrined in laws and in international agreements.

On the streets of Kabul, the vast majority of women still shroud themselves in the traditional burkas. In the Afghan capital, deviating from the strictest interpretation of Islam may no longer be grounds for death, but as the day-to-day realities of post-Taliban life become apparent, it is clear that liberation from the tyranny of the Taliban is a relative matter.

In the heady days following the overthrow of the Taliban, as the United States rejoiced in its victory, politicians pointed to the freeing of Afghan women as one of the great victories of the war on terror. Alas, the condition of women was really an afterthought. Women in parts of the Muslim world live with customs that governed the world many centuries ago. As the world tries to persuade the followers of Islam to listen more closely to the teachings of more moderate Muslims, the fate of women hangs in the balance.

For women like Amina Lawal, efforts to support a more moderate interpretation of Islam may come tragically too late.