GERMANY:A German judge has come under fire for citing the Koran in her dismissal of a divorce request from a Muslim woman beaten by her husband.
The woman, a German citizen of Moroccan origin, had applied to a Frankfurt court for a speedy divorce after her husband had threatened to kill her.
Rejecting the request, the judge said: "You were raised in the Moroccan culture. Such situations could be normal in your culture. According to the sura [ verse] Nisa of the Koran, man has dominance over woman. So, there is no need for you to get an urgent divorce."
Politicians and women's rights campaigners attacked the verdict yesterday, saying it justified marital violence, endangered the woman's life and placed Muslim law, the Sharia, above German law. The 26-year-old woman, unnamed for legal reasons, married her Moroccan-born husband in 2001. Soon after that, she says, he began hitting her. After he moved out of their home, he threatened to kill her.
In May 2006 the woman filed for divorce and, citing the death threats, hoped that the judge would waive the usual one-year separation period.
The judge rejected her application and, in a clarifying letter to her lawyer, she cited the "right to castigate" in the Koran, a controversial passage sometimes interpreted to justify husbands beating their wives if they are "unchaste".
"The exercise of the right to castigate does not fulfil the hardship criteria as defined by paragraph 1565 [ of German federal law]", wrote the judge, advising the woman to wait a year and apply again for a divorce.
"Apparently the judge deems it unchaste when my client adapts a western lifestyle," said Barbara Becker-Rojczyk, the woman's lawyer, yesterday.
Women's rights organisation Terre de Femmes called for disciplinary proceedings against the judge. "Does this wife not have a right to physical integrity?" asked Christa Stolle. "It cannot be the case in a democratic country like Germany that religious rules can be called on to justify abuse."
A spokesman for Frankfurt district court confirmed yesterday that the judge had been removed from the case yesterday, but the case would not be reheard.
"It's bad enough that Muslim women have to experience marital violence," said Kristina Köhler, an expert on Muslim affairs, "but for a German court to indicate an alleged right to castigation is intolerable and abhorrent."