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PESHAWAR, Wednesday (AFP) Islamists tabled a long-awaited bill on enforcing Islamic sharia law in Pakistan's conservative northwest, raising fears from Christian groups the move could lead to Taliban-style local government.

"We want to bring reform in education, economy and society according to the teachings of Islam," the Enforcement of Islamic Sharia Law 2003 bill stated. The bill was submitted to the Islamist-dominated North West Frontier Province (NWFP) assembly for debate and approval. Many of the feared restrictions, such as bans on co-education and interest-oriented banking, were not contained in the bill. But it outlined the establishment of several commissions that could recommend such restrictions. An economic reform commission would "prepare recommendations for the abolition of the interest-based economic system and point out alternate arrangements," it stated.

Commissions to reform education and NWFP's judicial system would also be set up, and obscenity and vagrancy would be curtailed, the bill said, adding all provincial courts would operate under sharia law. Non-Muslims would be exempt from sharia and their religious freedoms maintained, while the NWFP government would ensure that sharia laws did not contradict the federal constitution. "This law will not affect the individual laws, religious freedoms, customs and lifestyles of non-Muslims," the bill stated. Since surging to power in October polls, Islamists have been waging a so-called anti-obscenity drive in NWFP, vandalising music stores and tearing down billboard advertisements featuring women and Western products.

The NWFP government this month banned men from training female athletes or watching women play sport, and announced plans to establish a Taliban-style Department of Vice and Virtue to police civil servants' behaviour. Christian rights activist Ashiq Chaudhry declared the bill "another step towards Taliban style rule in NWFP."

"It will be another discriminatory law...that will harm the interests of minorities in the province," said Chaudhry, a spokesman for the All Pakistan Minorities' Alliance.

He was sceptical about the pledge to exempt non-Muslims. "When MMA enforces vice and virtue, what is the guarantee that it will spare non-Muslims?" The private Human Rights Commission rejected the bill on the grounds that the state had no role in enforcing religion. "We fear this sharia bill will take the process of depriving people of rights a little further," the Commission's Kamila Hayat told AFP.

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