Aetius
Registered
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...55E1702,00.html
Irish polygamy law 'racist'
From correspondents in Dublin
24jun04
A NEW government regulation that requires Muslim men seeking Irish residency to reject polygamy is racist and possibly illegal, Ireland's main civil liberties group said today.
The government introduced the written oath this month after rejecting an application from a Lebanese man for both of his wives and all 13 children to be granted residency.
A married Muslim man seeking residency must now declare he has "one
pouse only" and "has no intention of entering into a simultaneous marriage".
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties said the rule amounted to religious discrimination and appeared to con
travene the European Convention on Human Rights.
Aisling Reidy, the council's director, stres
sed that she wasn't condoning polygamy, but insisted the practice was already outlawed in Ireland and so required no "religious-specific affidavit" to back it up.
She said the new rule "assumes that Muslims, irrespective of whether they come from secular societies or states that do not recognise polygamy, do not understand or would not respect the normal law of the land because they are 'different'."
In the past decade, Ireland, traditionally a country with a chronic emigration problem, has experienced its first wave of immigration. Census findings this year indicate about 20,000 Muslims live in this predominantly Roman Catholic country of 3.9 million people.
The Lebanese petitioner, Hussein Ali Hammoud, became a naturalised Irish citizen in 2002, after claiming asylum on the ground that he was a former "chief of security" in a militia.
<
br>Ireland granted residency to his second wife and five of his children, but rejected applications from his first wife and eight other children to live
there, too.
Irish polygamy law 'racist'
From correspondents in Dublin
24jun04
A NEW government regulation that requires Muslim men seeking Irish residency to reject polygamy is racist and possibly illegal, Ireland's main civil liberties group said today.
The government introduced the written oath this month after rejecting an application from a Lebanese man for both of his wives and all 13 children to be granted residency.
A married Muslim man seeking residency must now declare he has "one
pouse only" and "has no intention of entering into a simultaneous marriage".
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties said the rule amounted to religious discrimination and appeared to con
travene the European Convention on Human Rights.
Aisling Reidy, the council's director, stres
sed that she wasn't condoning polygamy, but insisted the practice was already outlawed in Ireland and so required no "religious-specific affidavit" to back it up.
She said the new rule "assumes that Muslims, irrespective of whether they come from secular societies or states that do not recognise polygamy, do not understand or would not respect the normal law of the land because they are 'different'."
In the past decade, Ireland, traditionally a country with a chronic emigration problem, has experienced its first wave of immigration. Census findings this year indicate about 20,000 Muslims live in this predominantly Roman Catholic country of 3.9 million people.
The Lebanese petitioner, Hussein Ali Hammoud, became a naturalised Irish citizen in 2002, after claiming asylum on the ground that he was a former "chief of security" in a militia.
<
br>Ireland granted residency to his second wife and five of his children, but rejected applications from his first wife and eight other children to live
there, too.
