Here’s How Kelantan’s Muslims Could Be Punished If They Drink Alcohol Or Commit ‘Zina'
“Why not flog offenders in public after Friday prayers?"
By Nandini Balakrishnan — 09 Mar 2016, 06:09 PM
After years of insisting that Malaysia should implement hudud laws, the Kelantan government have reaffrimed the notion by showing their support for a PAS MP's suggestion that adulterers should be whipped in public if they go against Sharia laws
According to news portal Star Online, Kelantan Deputy Mentri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Abdullah lauded the suggestion as a step towards PAS’s goal of implementing hudud, or the Islamic penal code, in the state.
"The suggestion is a good one but needs a lot of study and I believe it is possible because Acheh (in Indonesia) has implemented such punishment," he was quoted as saying by the news portal.
"We will also look into the mechanics of implementing it in Kelantan."
But he added that there were other factors that must be evaluated before the state government could decide.
themalaymailonline.com
“Why not flog offenders in public after Friday prayers?" asked PAS Tawang's assemblyman Datuk Hassan Mohamood, who raised the suggestion at the state assembly today, 9 March
Indonesian national Murni Amris caned for selling food during the fasting month on 1 October 2010
Image via Jakarta Globe"Two men found guilty of zina (adultery) in Tawau by the Syariah High Court were caned 40 times in front of witnesses.
"If Sabah can do it, I do not see why Kelantan, which is at the forefront of the hudud agenda, can’t carry out such public punishment," he told the state assembly.
Under the state’s Syariah Criminal Code, those found guilty of consuming alcoholic beverages, having illicit sex and slander can be lashed between eight and 100 times.
According to Haasan, this form of punishment, would serve as a way to educate people instead of the general perception that it would bring shame to the offenders
PAS is aiming to enforce the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code II 1993, its version of hudud, but may not do so until legal barriers are removed at the federal level.
It has sought to amend the Shariah Court Act (Criminal Jurisdiction) 1965 or Act 355, which currently only allows the Shariah courts to mete out punishments limited to RM3,000 fine, five years’ jail and six strokes of caning.
But its repeated attempts to enhance the powers of the Shariah courts via private member’s bills in Parliament have never made it to debate despite being put on the agenda.
themalaymailonline.com
In April 2015, when commenting on the hudud debate, former Malaysian premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, said that PAS' hudud implementation is more politically motivated than it is Islamic
The former prime minister said PAS's hudud law was unjust because it created two sets of laws, one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims, and included the punishment of stoning to death, which was not even included in the Quran.
He added that PAS's intention to implement hudud was not to uphold Islam, but for politics and to win elections.
"The hudud that is proposed by PAS is not Islamic hudud. It is PAS hudud.
"If you are not just, you are not Islamic. If you have political intentions, it's not Islamic. So the people in Kelantan Umno who supported this don't even know what they're supporting," said Dr Mahathir at a forum in Cyberjaya today, 4 April 2015.
themalaysianoutsider.com
Just a month after that in May 2015, Marina Mahathir stressed she would leave Malaysia if hudud law is implemented in the country
"I cannot live in a country where people want to cut off hands, I’m sorry, or stone people to death," she said in a media interview. "I would never live in Saudi Arabia. I don’t want to live in a country where this is official policy."
Marina, daughter of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, recounted how she had met middle-class Iranians living in exile in New York who were bitter and aggressive about religion’s place in secular life, after women’s rights regressed in Iran when it became an Islamic state.
"I thought, I never want to be like that, I never want to be a bitter exile. So I always thought okay lah, I will stay and fight," she was quoted as saying. However she would emigrate if hudud were to be implemented, Malay Mail Online reported.