New law ‘may create state within a state’
OPPOSITION SAYS REGIME IS TRYING TO APPEASE SUNNI INSTITUTIONS
Opposition says Al Assad regime is trying to appease long-suffering clerics with controversial concessions |
The proposed law allows the ministry to set up its own commercial establishments, whose revenue would go directly to the ministry’s treasury.
Aproposed new law giving wide and unprecedented powers to the Ministry of Religious Endowments (Awqaf) has generated controversy on Syrian social media networks.
The law is raising eyebrows among Syrian minorities, mainly Christians and Alawites, who say they stand opposed to the “Islamisation of society”.
The proposed legislation, called Law No. 16, is still awaiting official ratification by the Syrian parliament.
But the contents of its 39 pages are also creating unprecedented cracks among regime loyalists, who see it as a painful concession granted by the regime to Sunni clerics.
Meanwhile, the opposition claims that the regime is trying to appease mainstream Sunni institutions, given that the vast majority of victims in the seven-year conflict have been Sunnis.
Unprecedented powers
With few exceptions, most senior clerics stood by the regime since the outbreak of the present conflict in 2011, forcing it — back then — to issue other concessions, described as “painful” by the Baathists, like closing the Damascus Casino, establishing a religious television channel called Al Nour, and lifting a ban on wearing the niqab in government schools.
The proposed law allows the ministry to set up its own commercial establishments, whose revenue would go directly to the ministry’s treasury, giving it complete financial independence, without passing through the central bank or ministry of finance.
The law also authorises the minister to appoint the Grand Mufti of the Republic, a right previously vested in the presidency, and limits his tenure to three years, renewable only through the minister’s approval.
Among its other provisions, the law also envisions a new body called “The Religious Youth Team” to train preachers, monitor public vice, and make zakat an obligatory tax for Sunnis. It also establishes pre-university Sharia schools and religious councils in mosques, independent of the ministry of education and Higher Education.
Baathist MP Nabil Saleh, who leaked the legislation to the press, told Gulf News: “We already have 103 religious schools in Syria. Do we really need more?”
On October 1, Awqaf Minister Abdul Sattar Sayyed appeared on television, saying the version of the law circulating on social media was “doctored” claiming that the full legislation was “a firstgrade nationalist law” because it authorised his team to root out salafist and “takfiri” elements from Syrian society. He quickly added, however, that the law “was not a Quran”, saying deputies were free to debate and amend it.
Syrian lawyer Ahmad Mansour said: “This is a revolution in the rights and duties of the Ministry of Religious Endowments. It creates a state within a state, with ultimate authority vested in the minister.”