Bin Laden Mentor Fights Ban on Child Brides in Yemen

Powerful Yemeni cleric Sheik Adbul-Majid Al-Zindani, said by the U.S. to be a mentor to Osama Bin Laden, is organizing a campaign to prevent passage of a draft law that will prohibit child brides in Yemen, where 25% of girls marry before they are 15. The new law will raise the mandatory age to 17. Al-Zindani is seeking one million signatures for a petition he claims the government will be unable to ignore. He argues that the ban on child brides threatens Islamic culture and “spreads inhumanity.”