From the Telegraph.

We knew that sharia courts were operating in Britain even before Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave the lecture  in February which caused such a stir.

It was said that these courts arbitrated on marriages, as Jewish courts or Catholic marriage tribunals do. Everything was to be done with the consent of both parties. More surprisingly, it seems that sharia courts are giving judgement in criminal cases. In six cases of domestic violence, according to Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.

Can you imagine what kind of consent wives involved in such cases have given to the sharia court’s jurisdiction?

Often, Muslim women marry in an Islamic ceremony without the ratification of a marriage in English law. This gives them no rights under the law of the land in the case of divorce. Nor would they have any claim to inherit under English law.

So we see the growth of sharia as a parallel jurisdiction to the law of the land, imposed on a sector of society that cannot resist it.

It’s fitting that this is being publicised at the same time as this piece of anti-Christian claptrap from the BBC:

A successful Christian children’s author says he was refused appearances on the BBC because it couldn’t be “seen to be promoting Jesus”.

G P Taylor’s first novel, Shadowmancer, spent 15 weeks at the top of the British book charts in 2003. His second book, Wormwood, sold 22,000 copies in one day.

Yet the author claims that invitations for appearances on the BBC stopped once producers found out he was a Christian.

“I had good relations with them until they realised that there were religious allegories in my stories,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.

“Once they had decided that I was promoting Christianity in my books I found the door firmly shut.”

Mr Taylor said his faith meant that he was not welcome on children’s programmes like Blue Peter.

He said: “A BBC producer told me ‘off the record’ that it was a matter of my faith and the fact that I was an Anglican priest. ‘We can’t be seen to be promoting Jesus’, he said with a laugh.”

A spokesman for the BBC denied the allegations. “Programme makers make their own editorial decisions about which guests to have on their shows. There is no truth in the claim that there is a BBC ban on G P Taylor.”

However, Mr Taylor said: “They weren’t turning me down because I was a bad guest, but because of who I am.

“I’m an Anglican priest and sadly while it’s OK to be the next Philip Pullman, it’s not all right to be a Christian writer.”

And, one imagines, the Arch-twit of Canterbury, Rowan Williams – having explained to us why sharia law in the UK is such a good idea – will have absolutely nothing to say about this blatant discrimination against the religion he is supposed to be defending.