OneWorld.net (U.S.)

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Since the summer of 2002, septuagenarian Fazel Hadi Shinwari has run Afghanistan's Supreme Court like the respected Islamic scholar he is.

He has banned the Afghan feminist Sima Samar from holding a cabinet position, after she reportedly said she didn't believe in Islamic sharia law.

He has banned an Afghan TV station for showing what he called "half-naked singers and obscene scenes from movies." He has also spoken against coeducation; has supported the employment of women (if they wear head scarves); and ordered the arrest of an Afghan journalist who suggested that, in some cases, the Koran was open to interpretation. The charges in this case were blasphemy, punishable by death.

Mr. Shinwari says these decisions are based on Islamic law. But as a growing chorus of European and Western donor nations call on the government to reform and professionalize the judicial system - as required by the Constitution and the Afghanistan Compact signed in London on Feb. 1 - the chief justice says that Afghanistan will be governed by Islamic laws or tumble into violent civil conflict.

"Anything that is according to the Koran is fine with me, but if you go against the Koran, you Europeans will have to tell Karzai to get rid of this old man who is in charge of the Supreme Court," says Shinwari, a lean but sturdy man whose white turban shows his rank as a maulvi, or top religious scholar. "I'm ready to resign, but then there will be lots of problems, just as the desecration of the image of the prophet Muhammad, peace be unto him, caused 60,000 people to go out into the streets. The same thing will happen here."

SOURCE: Full story at Christian Science Monitor