Blow to Islamists: Libya bans religious parties from government

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
4/26/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Decision comes before country's first general elections since the fall of Khadafi

A new law that bans parties that are based on religious principles has been passed by Libya's ruling National Transitional Council, or NTC. The law, passed this week, comes two months ahead of the country's first general elections to choose a 200-member assembly to compose a new constitution and form a new government.

The law, passed this week, comes two months ahead of the country's first general elections to choose a 200-member assembly to compose a new constitution and form a new government.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The move was denounced by Islam-oriented parties that were preparing to compete in the June elections.

NTC spokesman Mohamed al-Hareizi says the provision was designed to preserve "national unity.

"Parties shouldn't be based on ethnic or religious ideologies," he said. "We don't want the government to be divided by these ideological differences."

Al-Hareizi did not make clear how this would affect a political party formed last month by Libya's Muslim Brotherhood and other religious groups.

The Muslim Brotherhood was expected to make a strong showing in the election, the first since last year's overthrow of Moammar Khadafi in a NATO-backed popular uprising.

"This is not democracy," Mohamed Gaira, spokesman for the Freedom and Development party founded by the Muslim Brotherhood said. "We don't understand this law ... It could mean nothing, or it could mean that none of us can participate in the election," he added.

"We are a nationalist party and Islam is our religion. This law is unacceptable and only suits liberals."

Mohamed Sawan, the head of the Freedom and Development Party, said the NTC needed to reiterate what it meant by banning religious parties, saying this would cause controversy in conservative Libya, whose population of six million is made up almost entirely of Sunni Muslims.

"This kind of clause is only useful in countries where there exists many religions, not in Libya where most people are religious Muslims," Sawan says.

"This law needs to be reviewed by the NTC and if it's not changed, we would have to protest it."

Libya's NTC has already indicated that the country will be run in accordance with sharia, the strict guidelines favored by most Islamic nations. The exact place of Islamic law in the legal system will be settled only once a new constitution is written after elections.

Political analysts say the Muslim Brotherhood is likely to emerge as Libya's most organized political force and an influential player in the oil-exporting state where Islamists, like all dissidents, were harshly suppressed during the 42 years of Gaddafi's dictatorial rule.

Islamic political parties have performed strongly in post-uprising elections in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco since October, after the Arab spring. Islamic groups are also likely to do well in Libya, a socially conservative country where alcohol was already banned before the 2011 revolution.

� 2012, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Libya, Muslim Brotherhood, Islam, religion, new government

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1 - 5 of 5 Comments

Marius
1 year ago
This means a civil war in the making.
Bulbajer
1 year ago
At first I thought, YES!!! What a triumph for religious liberty at a time when the Middle East is inn turmoil. But perhaps the NTC ought to allow some religion in the government, just to keep the moderate Islamists from joining the hardcore and radical Islamists in another civil war.
mgm.
1 year ago
I wish we could ban religious parties from our government .
Janet Baker
1 year ago
I think the statement by the Muslim brotherhood is right, that where a religion is held by the majority of the citizens, it ought to be the moral code that is enforced by the state. That was Catholic teaching before the Council (google Ottaviani the duties of the catholic state). The liberal argues that making no religion 'official' in this way contributes to a more comfortable society, but it does not, it opens the door wide for any minority to try to fill the moral vacuum, since no group of people can live without a set of moral principles governing all, any more than people can drive without common rules of the road. Some group or another will continually be vying for dominance, not from vice but from the human need for coherence, and this is what we see around the world now. Better that the majority group be allowed to make its marketplaces and courts consistent with its holy houses of worship, and then, because it is secure, be able to practice tolerance toward minorities. Indeed, this is what passed in this very region until the present *secular* times.

The Church is not innocent in what is happening here. Vatican II abandoned our Catholic mission for a Catholic state wherever we were in the majority, and dissolved the five remaining Catholic states in favor of secular ones, which the Council praised repeatedly, partly because of the success of the secular US after WW2. Now we Catholics call for secularism in the middle east (cf the middle east synod in Rome last October) and it absolutely infuriates muslims, and is at the root of the violence toward the Church now in those regions which precisely are fighting secularism for their own religious states.

Libya is just another example of us being on the wrong side, in my poor but interested opinion. You may know that this very question dominates the doctrinal dispute between SSPX and the liberals in the vatican. SSPX has said, perhaps to cool the flames, that the matter of religious liberty (secularism) is not political, but doctrinal, but their founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre predicted at the time that it would bring political chaos and great social suffering for the common person and for the Church. And so it has, and is, and must be repudiated in the documents of the Council and in the actions and practical policies of the Church. Secularism is devisive, untenable, and is leading to our own downfall as a nation, and we absolutely should not be forcing it on others at the point of a gun, as we are now, or even recommending it.
abey
1 year ago
On the other hand for a Christian, on the basis of Biblical revelations in Danial , there is nothing to rejoice as is stated about the false christ , the son of perdition " Libya & Ethiopia will be at his door step" which is to do his desires & this resonate with the Thugs who rule Libya today, to his bidding.

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