Caning of Muslim women was legal: DPM of Malaysia

[sowfoong]

Link to article, "Caning of Muslim women was legal: DPM" @

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp...900&sec=nation

Quote:

"On Wednesday, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein announced that three women had been caned on Feb 9 at the Kajang Prison under Section 23 (2) of the Syariah Criminal Offences (Federal Territories) Act 1997 for having illicit sex.

All Women’s Action Society (Awam) president Sofia Lim Siu Ching said the Home Ministry needed to explain why the punishment was carried out in secret, The Star Online reported Thursday.

"The expediency and the secrecy reek of bad faith and betray a troubling disregard for public opinion on an issue that has drawn attention around the globe,” she said in a statement Thursday.

Sisters in Islam (SIS) executive director Dr Hamidah Marican said the three cases constituted further discrimination against Muslim women in Malaysia.

“It violates constitutional guarantees of equality and non-discrimination as the whipping of women under Syariah Criminal Offences legislation contradicts civil law where women are not punishable by caning under Section 289 of the Criminal Procedure Code,” she said.

Dr Hamidah asked whether the men involved were similarly caned, The Star Online reported.

The caning punishment meted out by the Syariah court is legal and how the international community looks at it, is up to them."-end of quotation.

Well done Malaysia, carry out the sentence first then announce it so there won't be any hindrance like in the case of part-time model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno being sentenced by the Syariah court to caning for drinking beer in July last year.

I, too would like to know if the men involved were similarly caned. It reeks of hypocrisy if nothing was done to them.

I don't think it is going to look good for Malaysia in its handling of this case especially knowing the public opinion in Malaysia and around the globe. Looks like Malaysia heading towards a more radical form of Islam.

[Han Solo]

Stupid discrimination towards women.

In the public eye, this would not be different from those Arab countries mode of punishment.

Han Solo

[Guo Xiang]

There are stories circulating around that Malaysia has descended into such radical behaviour because the ruling party UMNO is trying to win back the votes of the Malay Muslims in the country.

[HuangYushi]

To be blunt: A lot of social ills are prevalent within the Muslim community. It's just that no one wants to bring every single ill out into the open with its corresponding statistics. The community needs to move out of its current mindset that borders on a strange mix of perceived helplessness and priviledged need.

Caning of women is just a manisfestation of the perceived need to do something about a specific symptom of social decay, not a means to resolve the roots of the decay in the first place.

[kidd]

I posted this in the 'Allah' thread. I'll post it here again.

Three Malaysian women caned for extramarital sex

The title is actually wrong. The women were caned for khalwat not zina. Khalwat is just being in close/suspicious proximity with a person who is not your spouse or someone you are forbidden to marry. There's a totally of 3 women and 4 men being caned.

I don't know whether the 4 men caned were involved with the women or they were involved in different cases. But, we can see here that both men and women were caned. But, of course, news title only highlight the controversial issue i.e. women being caned. No one seems to care about the men who were punished as well.

http://www2.esyariah.gov.my/esyariah...2?OpenDocument

UMNO seems to be acting more and more Islamic to try to gain back the vote of the Malay citizens.

Btw, it's usually the poor and helpless who got punished. Big shots never did.

http://thestar.com.my/columnists/sto...20The%20Nation

Excerpts from the article.

And just recently in the same Kuantan Syariah Court, an odd-job Indonesian man who spent RM3.20 for a bottle of samsu which he shared with two other friends in a moment of respite was jailed for a year with six strokes of the rotan. He is in prison because he could not afford to pay the RM5,000 fine.

And yet, we all know that every day, thousands of Muslims commit what are deemed to be offences under the all-encompassing Syariah Criminal Offences (SCO) laws and get away with it. I know of a certain Tan Sri who leaves his collection of expensive bottles of wine in the wine cooler of his favourite restaurant. His bottles are labelled, just like the expensive shampoo and conditioner bottles left by regular clients at their favourite hairdressing salon.

There are stories circulating around that Malaysia has descended into such radical behaviour because the ruling party UMNO is trying to win back the votes of the Malay Muslims in the country.

Those Malay Muslims most probably are more concern about corruption and money politics that went rampant in UMNO/BN than petty moral issues. Kelantan might be backward, but, I heard things are fairer there.

[Guo Xiang]

I don't know whether the 4 men caned were involved with the women or they were involved in different cases. But, we can see here that both men and women were caned. But, of course, news title only highlight the controversial issue i.e. women being caned. No one seems to care about the men who were punished as well.

The purpose is to boost readership and sales. It's the same reason why news of women outmaneuvering men in divorce cases (esp. if it's the woman's fault) are being highlighted over and over again on newspapers. If it's a man then nobody would care less because men winning is a given, and taken for granted due to their superior social status. Therefore, it's quite eye-catching when it's a woman in the limelight of certain cases such as this.

This is part of the society rationale behind the reason of why cases of abused husbands and raped men (by women) appear as though they do not exist, because abused spouse and raped victims are seen as a woman's "role"/position.

People probably wouldn't even take a glance at this case if the headlines focus on the men, and that's the problem.

[Banh Mi]

Actually, anyone getting caned in public is pretty amusing.

[Lucre]

Actually, anyone getting caned in public is pretty amusing.

hmmm, that's a pretty sadistic view.

[Banh Mi]

I don't take pleasure because someone is getting. It's just cool that there are laws that reprimand adults as if they were children.

[Candide]

The misandrist Western brainwashing media is at it again.

Men and women were all caned, but they made it sound like only the women got punished.

Then they have the stones to call those Muslim folks backwards.

[Guo Xiang]

The misandrist Western brainwashing media is at it again.

Men and women were all caned, but they made it sound like only the women got punished.

Then they have the stones to call those Muslim folks backwards.

More of anti-Islam than anti-men. More of sensationalism than anti-men. More on sales than anti-men.

But then maybe you would like to take note that the papers linked to in this thread, were mostly, if not all, Malaysian papers.

[Candide]

I read about it in Western media, not just this thread.

And of course most people would attempt to dismiss the misandrist tone as less important than other things, because it's so pervasive in our society that hardly anyone gives a shit.

[Guo Xiang]

I read about it in Western media, not just this thread.

And of course most people would attempt to dismiss the misandrist tone as less important than other things, because it's so pervasive in our society that hardly anyone gives a shit.

Well, it's considered more "newsworthy" for "feminist" issues to be placed as headlines. This is an unfortunate side-effect of men being top of the social "caste system", but that's how the media works for you.

Focusing on the women brings in money and discussion, men don't.

[Ian Liew]

The misandrist Western brainwashing media is at it again.

Men and women were all caned, but they made it sound like only the women got punished.

I don't understand why the government doesn't specifically answer the women's rights groups that the men involved in that specific case where the women got caned were caned as well. Maybe they weren't, and the men who got caned were from other cases.

One thing I really hate about this whole thing - our DPM and Home Minister enjoy giving comments as Muslims, and not as Ministers. They are not qualified to give an opinion about how fair it is under Islam, only whether it was legal and according to law. They should just let the Islamic groups make the statements defending the process, but the UMNO leaders are too keen to represent Islam in the media. It's not what they were elected for, and certainly not their job.

[Candide]

Maybe they don't take feminists seriously.

Yeah pimpin' your religion should be done outside of politik. That's not cool.

[kidd]

Kartika escape the caning. Her sentence has been converted to community service for 3 weeks by the Sultan but she prefer caning and get it over with. Why did she go to see the sultan then? Actually who arranged for her to see the sultan in the first place? He case was so small, why need Sultan's intervention?
Btw, she's divorcing her husband too. This is such a shocking news because up till now, I always thought her husband has been supportive of her base on news report.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp...013&sec=nation

[Guo Xiang]

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp...013&sec=nation

This is so not newsworthy at all. Sigh.