Homa Arjomand fled Iran in 1989 to escape the brutal misogynistic barbarism of shari’a law.

The problem, though, was that she fled to Canada.

And shari’a followed her, with the help of the multiculturalist Canadian government: Ontario sharia tribunals assailed.

The last time this subject was raised at LGF, many readers seemed to believe that the brand of shari’a allowed in Canada was harmless, because participation is voluntary and decisions can be appealed in regular courts.

Homa Arjomand doesn’t buy it.

Now head of the new International Campaign To Stop Sharia Courts in Canada, she and representatives from several concerned groups met last month with senior staff at the attorney-general’s office and with Sandra Pupatello, the minister responsible for women’s issues.

Arjomand told them flatly that under the guise of protecting religious freedom and multiculturalism — the fear, perhaps, of offending the Muslim community’s male leadership — they were about to let the rights of Canadian Muslim women be trampled on.

Most at risk are young immigrants, said Arjomand, who come from the Middle East or North Africa, where sharia is the law and has been used to subjugate them their entire lives. They know nothing different.

Now that sharia tribunals are to operate here, she says, many women will be socially and psychologically coerced into participating. To refuse would mean rejection by their families and the community — or worse.

“In a straight disagreement between a husband and wife, the husband’s testimony will prevail. That is sharia. Even those women who know they can appeal will not challenge an arbitration decision for fear of the consequences.”

Despite what the attorney-general’s office blithely assumes, she says, it’s unlikely decisions contrary to Canadian law will ever show up before the courts.

Sharia-approved but illegal activities already occur in Toronto, and she fears this will give strength to them. Muslim women are battered but don’t dare report it. Bigamous marriages occur. Among her clients are two 14-year-old girls who were married last year to older men, in defiance of Ontario law prohibiting marriage before age 16.

“This is child abuse, sexual abuse,” Arjomand says scathingly. “These girls were born in Canada. I want to tell them to leave and get them into group homes, but if they do they’ll be disavowed and isolated.”

In a May 7 letter to Arjomand, John Gregory, general counsel to the attorney-general, acknowledged “the oppression that some Muslim women experience in Canada.”

But that was not reason to deny the Islamic Institute the right to use the Arbitration Act.