Letters: Parallel laws

The concept of parallel justice systems, different for various communities based on their religious beliefs, is in effect a denial of the principles of gender equality and inclusion and shared citizenship ("Sharia law 'coming to Britain' ", 4 July).

The western legal systems grant men and women equal rights under a single set of rules, whereas some Islamic jurisprudence experts promote Sharia rules that contravene the Human Rights Act and civil liberties guaranteed under the English laws, such as freedom of expression and the rights of women in cases of divorce, inheritance and testimony in court. The testimony of a woman in the eyes of Sharia law is deemed half as credible as that of a man; similarly, the Sharia grants women less than half the share of inheritance enjoyed by male family members.

The assumption by the Lord Chief Justice that such interpretations of Sharia law could become a successful alternative form of conflict resolution for British Muslim communities will only result in further alienating and segregating members of the Muslim communities not just from those belonging to the same communities, but also from the rest of society.

There have been no calls from members of the British Muslim communities demanding the introduction of Sharia as a parallel justice system other than being the desire of hard-line groups such as the Muslim Council of Britain or the Sharia Council. Endorsing the views of such groups is nonsensical and could lead to disastrous consequences for future cohesion of the society.

Shaaz Mahboob

Vice Chair, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, London WC1

Ban will put sex workers in peril

Denis MacShane appears to be calling for the paid-for sex industry to be closed down because some women are trafficked to this country (letter, 4 July).

All forms of trafficking and exploitation need to be stopped and there are already laws to deal with this. The answer to the problem is not to criminalise clients of workers who willingly and voluntarily engage in selling sex. They are consenting adults and their human rights will be infringed if the law is changed to prevent them from working in the way they choose.

Clients are part of the solution in countering trafficking in the sex industry. For example, the Turkish government set up a well-publicised hotline for reporting trafficking. In six months, three quarters of the tip-offs came from prostitutes' clients, and those calls resulted in the destruction of 10 trafficking networks and freedom of 100 women from coercion. In contrast, the enormously expensive Pentameter One operation found 88 trafficked women, and Home Office minister Vernon Coaker acknowledges there is no evidence trafficking is increasing.

Furthermore, in a study of clients, only 5 per cent said legal sanction was likely to deter them from paying for sex – though of course, men would be much less likely to report abuse if they themselves were confessing to a criminal act by doing so.

It is time the Government started to talk to sex workers rather than at them. The sex industry will never go away, but it will be made infinitely more dangerous for clients and workers by misguided attempts to drive it further underground.

Catherine Stephens

The International Union of Sex Workers, London NW4

Archbishops on an anti-gay crusade

The attempted coup by three conservative archbishops, the Most Rev Henry Orombi, Archbishop of Uganda, Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, Australia, and Archbishop Greg Venables, Primate of South America's Southern Cone, with their plan to "reassert the authority of the Bible", stands well in the tradition of other crusaders slapping a cross on to their shields and marching forth to build their own empires.

However much we might regret the appalling distraction initiated by the publicity courted by openly gay clerics, it pales beside the threat posed to both the Anglican communion and our corporate life by these Bible-wielding power-brokers.

Shortly, the rest of us running around rural parishes getting on with school assemblies while keeping an eye on the lead roof and praying about poverty, violence and injustice, juggling tomes on "New ways of being church" and health and safety won't be able to hear ourselves think above the drums of these new Christian soldiers marching as to war.

When they "storm the gates" they will find us at Evensong

The Tev Peter Macleod-Miller

Barrow Suffolk

Deborah Orr (2 July) is wrong. Atheists cannot "support" bigots on the grounds that they are preferable to worse ones.

The supposedly "liberal" Anglican view of homosexuality is that it can be overlooked as only a minor sin which, while still reprehensible, does not for ever blot out the degenerate offender from the whole of God's supposedly inclusive love. This view is not "liberal" just because it is slightly less nauseating than the fundamentalist one.

Rowan Williams has repeatedly intervened in internal Anglican affairs to insist on the superiority of heterosexuality. If he put forward these views, mutatis mutandis, in reference to black people or women, he would not be in the legislature but in prison, where he certainly belongs.

Mark Lilly

Swansea

I find it amazing that senior clergy cannot understand that the Bible is perforce influenced by the age and the culture in which it was written. God may inspire it, but human beings wrote it, and there is no guarantee that inspiration may not be misunderstood. When the Bible was written it was assumed that gay men and lesbians had a choice in the matter. Today we know that this is not so; they are made that way.

Perhaps we should ask people who take the Bible literally how they manage without electricity. As far as I know the Bible does not refer to it – only oil lamps and candles.

Ilse Boas

London N21

Sir: The Christian religion is, at heart, that of the marginalised. The poor "sinners", including prostitutes, the oppressed, those of other races and those who were not respectable members of society, were mostly considered by Jesus to be closer to God than the rich and successful. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, so presumably, in his mind, it was not an issue. But love, inclusion and tolerance were of paramount importance. So why all this Old Testament hate and intolerance from bishops and bigots? That's not the Christianity I recognise – it's pre-Gospel.

Hilary Fenten

Selside, North Yorkshire

Schools are not ready for diplomas

While our captains of industry are championing the new diploma (letter, 1 July), as a senior leader in a comprehensive school, I'd like to point out why they're not being welcomed with open arms here.

Schools are being asked to lead the establishment of new practical courses in buildings that were built essentially for academic pursuits. Additionally, we're being asked to deliver these on the same budget that we have received in past years.

In Sweden, each school has a distinct career-oriented identity and is kitted out at the building stage to be able to deliver that specialism in-house. If our government honestly believes that an engineering diploma can be delivered with equipment laid on for GCSE design and technology, or that my caretaker's shed can house the construction diploma, then they'd better think again.

Many diplomas are industrially oriented, when the British economy is essentially knowledge based and no longer industrial. The opportunity to link with industry is thus not as easy as the Government envisaged, all the less so for the numerous schools that are rurally based.

A school is not able to establish a diploma alone or independently, which complicates matters. A bid has to be part of a "consortia group" that may include a college and one or more commercial/industrial centres. The logistics of various institutions coming together to collaborate is so wasteful of time that most schools steer clear of it.

The idea of young people being bussed around our city has to be placed within the context of a busy curriculum, much of which youngsters are legally entitled to. As we're going to be judged on the standard of our maths and English GCSEs, I think we'll probably timetable that first.

A White

Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands

Sporting spirit of the English

The European championship was a joy. Every match could be anticipated with excitement and a feast of good football, skillful, imaginative, inspired and with flair was duly served. There was no booing of national anthems and defeat was taken in honourable good part by the thousands of happy Europeans at the stadiums and at the venues with giant screens.

Would it be a fair decision for the ruling bodies of world and European football to ban England from ever participating again? The thuggish, beer drinking hordes of sub-humans that glorify themselves as England supporters proved by their absence how joyful a tournament could be; we have to put up with them but I don't see why the rest of the world should.

Eddie Johnson

Long Melford, Suffolk

Why is it only the English who are expected to be British? Mark Steel castigates the English who fail to support Scottish tennis player Andy Murray, appealing to our common Britishness (Opinion, 2 July). Yet I very much doubt he would offer similar criticism to Scots who failed to support an English sportsperson.

I believe that Britishness is an artificial construct which should be allowed to die with the Empire it was invented to sustain. It's time to let the English be English: culturally, in sport, and (most crucially) by joining the Scots and the Welsh in having our own parliament.

Julian Gardiner

Elstree, Hertfordshire

Please tell Robert Gillan (letter, 3 July) that I am sure Andy Murray is no more anti-English than many other Scots who might have given the same light-hearted response. What really annoys is the use of "English"' and "British"' as synonyms when we Scots have sporting success.

Stewart McKendrick

Glasgow

On the trail of the teenage drinkers

Jeremy Beadles of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association says that young people think they will not succeed in buying alcohol from supermarkets (letter, 1 July).

He should visit our local sports field, where young teenagers gather to drink most evenings. The litter they leave consists of cans and bottles which had contained alcoholic beverages, as well as soft drinks, plus cigarette packets and other rubbish easily identifiable as being purchased from a local supermarket. He will find the mess easy to locate; it is marked by the wreckage of the small covered seating area.

Wake up, Mr Beadles, young people obtain alcohol whenever they wish to do so and from wherever they wish.

Mike Wood

Thornton Cleveleys, Lancashire

Russian revolution

The article "BP faces endgame" (2 July) incorrectly attributes the premiership of Russia to Dmitry Medvedev. Actually Medvedev used to be the prime minister when Vladimir Putin was the president. But now Medvedev is the president and Putin is the prime minister. But who would notice the change?

Dr Alok Bhattacharyya

London E7

Political morality

My wife teaches first-year primary school children, aged four or five. By the end of their first year, under the heading Emotional Development, it is common for them to reach a target which says that the child "understands what is right, what is wrong, and why". In the school situation the child has to accept being told when necessary about right and wrong. Who is to educate our parliamentarians ("MPs keep their perks", 4 July) and tell them that insisting on being unaccountable for spending our money unnecessarily is wrong?

Ian Waring Green

Alresford, Hampshire

Kitchen sink dramas

Contrary to the conclusion drawn by Jane Jakeman from Marigold glove sizes (letter, 30 June), men do wash up; it is just that we do not fuss about putting our bare hands in washing-up water. In our household "Who cooks does not wash up", so I do about 60 per cent of the washing up. It is possible to get larger-sized gloves; I have some in a butch shade of black that I put on when using bleach. I will not comment on the selling power of having different gloves for "kitchen" and "catering" and "bathroom".

David Foster

Ipswich

Are readers of The Independent too poor to afford dishwashers?

John Naylor

Ashford, Middlesex

War without terror

David Sketchley is mistaken to imply that covert activities, including the authorisation of lethal force, by the US against the present Iranian government is "terrorism" (letter, 1 July). Terrorism is the specific tactic of killing "innocent" civilians to instil terror and disrupt everyday life. Covert operations for regime change are a form of war.

Jiti Khanna

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Difficult test

Did you deliberately headline Johann Hari's piece about scientific illiteracy (3 July) with a scientifically illiterate phrase? A litmus test is not something which one can fail, as even someone with a 25-year-old A-level in biology could tell you.

Chris Campbell

London E10

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