Malaysia – Women Caned Under Islamic Law for Adultery

Three women have been caned under
Islamic law for committing adultery, a Malaysian minister has said.

This was the country’s first ever case involving flogging
of women.

Hishamuddin Tun Hussein, the
Malaysian home affairs minister, said on Wednesday the sentences were carried
out on February 9 after a sharia court found them guilty of extra-marital
sex.

“It
was carried out perfectly,” Hishamuddin said in a statement.
“Even though the caning did not injure them [the women], they said it
caused pain within them.”

Two of the women were whipped six times while the third received
four strokes of the rotan
(cane).

He said one woman was released from prison on Sunday, another
will be freed in the next few days while the third will go free in June.

Controversy

The women, and four men, were caned following a decision in the
religious courts in December, Hishamuddin said.

His comments are being seen as a signal that the
authorities could be preparing to cane another Muslim woman, Kartika Sari
Dewi Shukarno, who was arrested last year for drinking beer and sentenced to
six strokes of the cane.

Kartika’s case, which was to have been the first time a woman
was caned under Islamic law in Malaysia, is under review following widespread publicity and
international criticism.

The case, when first reported, raised concerns that the nation’s
secular status is under threat, eroding the rights of some 40-45 per cent of
the country’s ethnic minorities.

Hishammuddin said Kartika’s case had flagged concerns about how
women should be flogged and that the recent canings demonstrated that the
prisons department can carry out punishments in accordance with Islamic law.

Under the sharia, the women have to be whipped in a seated
position by a female prison guard and be fully clothed.

“I hope this will not be misunderstood so much that it
defiles the purity of Islam,” Hishammuddin said, according to state
media.

“The punishment is to teach and give a chance to those who
have fallen off the path to return and build a better life in future.”

New questions

The caning, however, has raised new questions about
whether a state religious court can sentence women to be caned when federal
law precludes women from such a punishment, while men below 50 can be
punished by caning.

Malaysia has a dual-track legal system with Islamic criminal and
family laws, which are applicable only to Muslims, running alongside civil
laws.

News of the women’s caning sparked public outrage, with lawyers
and rights groups on Thursday blaming the government for allowing it.

Ragunath Kesavan, president of the Malaysian Bar, said it was
worrying that the punishment had gone ahead even as the caning issue was
being hotly debated by Muslim scholars, religious groups and human rights
activists.

“The impression was that Kartika’s case would be the first
so I’ve got no idea what has happened,” he said.

“It’s not as if this is the Middle East… it’s not
a good signal that they’re [the government] sending out.”

“We are against any form of corporal punishment, for men or
women,” Kesavan said. “The fact is that any form of whipping is
barbaric.”

The case is expected to fuel a debate over rising “Islamisation”
in Malaysia, where religious courts have been clamping down on moral
offences, as well as a ban on Muslims consuming alcohol that had been rarely
enforced.

Caning ‘epidemic’

London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International on
Wednesday urged Malaysia to end a caning “epidemic”, saying the
women’s case was “just the tip of the iceberg”.

Donna Guest, the group’s deputy Asia-Pacific director, said in a
statement that Malaysian authorities caned more than 35,000 mostly foreigners
since 2002.

“The government needs to abolish this cruel and degrading
punishment, no matter what the offense,” she said.

Sisters in Islam, a local group of Muslim women activists, said
the caning “constitutes further discrimination against Muslim women in Malaysia“.

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