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Lords appeal for Lebanese mother and son facing separation
30 July 2008
A Lebanese woman is appealing to the House of Lords against a deportation order that would see her lose custody of her son under sharia law.
The woman, whose identity has not been released, is arguing her right to a family life and to gender equality would be compromised by returning to Lebanon, where her ex-husband will automatically be granted full custody rights over her son.
Human rights group Liberty has intervened in the case to support the mother, known only as 'EM'.
It says the automatic separation of a mother from her child under sharia law, following her expulsion to Lebanon, would be a breach of her and the child's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Liberty legal officer Alex Gask said: "We cannot deny this child the right to be with his mother. How can the same government which champions equal treatment under British law now deport mother and child to face certain separation under sharia?"
EM arrived in the UK in December 2004 with her son, born in July 1996, and claimed asylum.
She had obtained a divorce from her allegedly violent husband in the Islamic court in Lebanon and had been awarded physical custody of her son until his seventh birthday.
According to sharia law, after that date she will lose physical custody, which will be awarded to her husband and his family.
Submissions on behalf of the mother argue the deportation would qualify as a "flagrant" breach of her human rights, paving the way for her removal to be called off.
