Quote Originally Posted by Fragony
It's insane, the law is the law if they don't respect and don't recognise the authority as such something is very very wrong and you have to show musscle not hide behind imam so they don't throw stones. Maybe it will work and but is next? There will be something next because this is a downward spriral, state can't outsource it's responsibilities to religious groups we have seperation of church and state. We have to respect the law because the imam says so? How can we tolerate that? They have to respect the law because it is the law. They should bend to us not the other way around we will keep bending one insanity at the time.
It is insane. Large portions of the population have closer ties to their religious authority, the imams, than to the state they're living in. That's damaging and has been shown to be so; using imams in this way to tie them to the state is a step in the direction of placing authority over these youths where currently there is far too little.

You say this implicates that the imams are above the law? I see it more as implicating that even the imams are subject to the law and showing that using faith as any kind of excuse is not tolerated; that faith and Western law certainly aren't mutually exclusive, which is what seems to be common sentiment right now.

And if it doesn't work? It shows clearly to all parties that such youths respect neither law nor faith, and may finally lead to the (majority) law-abiding muslim community to finally realise that they have no reason to tolerate such behaviour.