# The Gadhafi conundrum:  Trial for his killers?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gadhafi-conundrum-trial-for-his-killers/600741>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 25, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gadhafi-conundrum-trial-for-his-killers/600741 "2011-10-25T15:07:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 22

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**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\
**Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gadhafi-conundrum-trial-for-his-killers/600741/22 "2011-10-25T17:33:23Z")

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> [@Oakminster](#):
>
> Gee, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask women living under the Taliban’s rule?

I’m an atheist, and a staunch believer in secular government. I have absolutely _no_ love for enshrining Islam (or Christianity, or Judaism, or Buddhism …) in law or government.

That being said, it’s important to be fair here: It is entirely possible to give Shariah law a role in a government without creating a regime akin to the Taliban. Malaysia, for example, affords Islamic law a special role in its courts. Now, you might argue that Malaysia doesn’t do the best job of protecting the civil rights of its citizens, and I’d agree with you. But I believe Freedom House describes Malaysia as a “partly free” country, and that’s about right - there’s a vigorous press, independent courts, women can participate in public life, and so on. The Malaysian government isn’t the Taliban; even if religion is enshrined in the Libyan state, there’s no need for the new government there to be the Taliban, either.

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