Inmates in the Gaza Strip’s main prison can now reduce their sentences by one year if they memorize five chapters from the Koran, Islam’s holy book, the prison’s governor announced Monday.
The prison, controlled by the militant Hamas movement since the group’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June, holds 350 prisoners, 30 of whom are on death row.
The new scripture program seeks to encourage prisoners to behave according to the Koran’s law, prison governor Col. Abu al-Abed Hamid, said in a statement.
Most of the inmates were sentenced before Hamas took power, for crimes ranging from murder to corruption to collaborating with Israel.
The traditionally male-dominated Hamas also announced its intention to add 100 female officers to the Gaza police force. They would supervise women prisoners and help in police actions when women must sometimes be present to search other women, said Gen. Tawfiq Jaber, the acting police chief.
Hamas, in the middle of the biggest crisis to hit the Palestinian national movement, has its priorities straight. Note also the introduction of segregation of police forces (i.e. policewomen introduced to handle female suspects). Hamas is ruling Gaza as if it intends to stay for the long term. Admittedly, one might argue it has the right to govern as it sees fit since it won the last election. But it’s not too early to ask, when will the next elections take place?
“in the middle of the biggest crisis to hit the Palestinian national movement”
You can only say that so many times…
So your point is that they’ve left off doing everything else a government should be doing in favor of introducing that new rule? Or that they should activity should stop on all fronts until the “biggest crisis to hit the Palestinian national movement” is resolved?
“Admittedly, one might argue it has the right to govern as it sees fit since it won the last election.” Thanks for the grudging concession there.
I think that the word ‘priority’ is one of the most abused in political debate. One has to prioritize in one of two cases. One is when the order of actions has a strong bearing on results (e.g., should I empty the gun first and then pull the trigger or the other way around!). The second is when resources are scarce and as such not all things can be done simultaneously.
So, inferring priorities from Hamas’ action is meaningless really. You should show that by committing themselves to this action they had to forego something else (because of their preference for this particular action). Short of this, the reasoning is clearly fallacious.
The other issue that I strongly urge you to bear in mind is that incentives for inmates to improve behaviour and trying to reduce prison populations is something that every liberal democracy tries its best to achieve. The means for improving behaviour though cannot be assumed to be universal. It might be worthwhile for the Germans to consider classical music improving, but this would be silly in Palestine.
My point is that: the Hamas’ decision is fundamentally a civil one, it is not unique to an Islamic movement. Uniqueness comes from the cultural perspective where for Hamas’ memorising Quran is improving.
I can’t stress it enough that any government anywhere makes decisions informed by the cultural beliefs of the government and its supporting constituency. The covert criticism that is discernible in your piece is totally unfair.
I expected much better, but as Bashshar Ibn Burd said
و إن أنت لم تشرب مرارا على القذى
ظمئت و أى الناس تص�و مشاربه
Regards.
Excellently put, Abu-al-alaa.
“My point is that: the Hamas’ decision is fundamentally a civil one, it is not unique to an Islamic movement. Uniqueness comes from the cultural perspective where for Hamas’ memorising Quran is improving.
I can’t stress it enough that any government anywhere makes decisions informed by the cultural beliefs of the government and its supporting constituency.”
Replace ‘Hamas’ with ‘South Carolina’, ‘Islamic’ with ‘Christian’ and ‘Quran’ with ‘Bible’ and you might as well be quoting Strom Thurmond.
Two quick points:
– The legality of Hamas carrying out changes in civil procedures is really not something I am familiar with, but one would consider that there is a real problem of whether Hamas (or the Fayad government) can really legally do anything at this point. The Fayad government essentially does not have a genuine legislative branch, and the Hamas government does not have a real executive aside from the Hamas cabinet ministers. It also does not have a full executive, since non-Hamas MPs are excluded. I am also curious how much parliamentary debate, if it is subject to it, these decisions were subjected to. Naturally it’s a bit silly to be talking about legality at this stage in the game. But my point is that Hamas’ priority should be returning to a united government for Palestine. What it did in Gaza was wrong, bad for Palestine and bad for itself, in my opinion. It is now completely isolated. This is so even if there were many unfair and illegal practices taking place against it by Abbas and various Israeli collaborators like Dahlan beforehand.
– I am unashamedly anti-Islamist and reject the introduction of these types of policies on principle for the reasons explained by AlexHamilton. For one, the decision to alleviate prison sentences for people who memorizes the Quran a) breaks the separation of religion and state, which I believe in and b) is discriminatory against Christians, who constitute a sizeable portion of Palestinians.
“What it did in Gaza”? Way to go with laying the blame at their doorstep.
In the rest of your post, you’ve added nothing new, just reiterated what you said ealier, which means the points about “priority” and your usage thereof still stand. Sort of like Arab dictators acting like we’re expected to put everything on hold until they get round to liberating Palestine, whenever that may be.
Again, I’m very aware that you’re “unashamedly anti-Islamist”, (which includes, apparently, your objection to people pausing to pray during the working day, as I recall).
The objection is to people praying in public places. I am all for prayer rooms, although I think it is legitimate to limit the time spent praying while working, or making it up in some other way (i.e. if I were an employer I would not want to pay people for praying).
Re: Hamas and Gaza… I think any reader of this blog will see that I have been clear about blaming Dahlan and his supporters for creating the conditions that led Hamas to do what it did in Gaza. But since Hamas itself continues to recognize the legitimacy of Abbas, a better alternative would have been to remove the more problematic parts of the Dahlan gangs without staging a full takeover of Gaza. My analysis is that it has put them in a much more difficult position than they previously were. Was the outcome of fully taking over Gaza unavoidable? Did the Fatah gangs abandon Gaza on purpose? I don’t know. But I feel the present situation is worse than the situation Hamas found itself in beforehand.
So out of curiousity, if there are no prayer rooms, and I’m in public most of the day, being a productive little worker or whatever, I should… not pray? Because it offends you in some sense? Violates your right to not have to see people praying? Scars you psychologically? Takes up too much room when I stand in a corner? Or should I just stay at home? “Hey, you feel obliged to pray a few times a day, you might as well withdraw from civilized society,” for example?
There should be prayer rooms, or at least rooms that can be used for this. But I think it’s obtrusive to pray in public, in the middle of an office for instance, as I’ve often seen done. We’ve had this argument before…
Indeed, and I seem to recall you also failed back then to explain your perspective or provide a feasible alternative. “There should be prayer rooms” doesn’t cut it, because there often aren’t. Great if there are, I’ll take them, but no one had better think of telling me not to pray because there aren’t.
I pray in the middle of an office full of non-Muslims. I do so in a place where I don’t get in anyone’s way, and no one has reason to complain. You object to this state of affairs?
I am also curious how much parliamentary debate, if it is subject to it, these decisions were subjected to.
I was thinking of that too. The article seems to say that the prison director himself announced it, with no reference to legislative bodies. So was it his decision? Hamas-loyal prison directors can make law now, and pardon prisoners, and Hamas doesn’t even get the contradiction between that and their claims to constitutional legitimacy?
“I was thinking of that too. The article seems to say that the prison director himself announced it, with no reference to legislative bodies. So was it his decision? Hamas-loyal prison directors can make law now, and pardon prisoners, and Hamas doesn’t even get the contradiction between that and their claims to constitutional legitimacy?”
Not a big fan of this koran memorizing/commutation/indulgence thingy myself, but all initiatives at the moment will, of neccesity, have no reference to the suspended legislature. Would you really suggest that Hamas not try to govern?
One thing i disagree with Issandr about is his point that hamas should make “returning to a unity government a priority.” As far as i can see, they have been much more compromising in this regard and willing to talk than Fatah, which insists (of course they don’t really mean it, and will eventually cave) that discussions aren’t possible until the status quo ante is restored. Hamas would be insane to meet that condition.
Once Fatah’s people, who are incredibly angry and emotional at the moment, get used to the notion the landscape has changed dramatically, they’ll deal.
Abbas basically said yesterday in Alexandria that reconciliation is not possible before Hamas apologizes and admits it was wrong. But presumably he is under pressure not to get back together with Hamas (assuming he’s even willing to contemplate it in the first place) from the US and Israel in any case. One worrying element is that in recent weeks Abbas has moved to militarize/securitize his rule in the West Bank, pretty much dropping all democratic mechanisms.
all initiatives at the moment will, of neccesity, have no reference to the suspended legislature.
That doesn’t mean prison directors should make up laws willy-nilly (if that is indeed what happened, and let me underline that I’m not sure it is).
If Hamas needs to rule through extraordinary measures, let them put together a committee or emergency government or a shura council or whatever to handle these things — prison directors have as much business deciding sentences, as road-raging cab drivers have deciding traffic rules. Allowing such initiatives to go forward will not strengthen Hamas rule, it will further anarchy.