{"id":361697,"date":"2010-02-25T08:58:27","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T13:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/?p=12058"},"modified":"2010-02-25T08:58:27","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T13:58:27","slug":"malaysia-getting-bruised-over-caning-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/361697","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia getting bruised over caning women"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MALAYSIA-ALLAH\/\"<\/p>\n

A Malaysian demonstrator in Kuala Lumpur during a protest in January against Christan use of the word Allah for God, 8 Jan 2010\/Bazuki Muhammad)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a 33-year-old mother of two, will have an audience with Malaysian\u00a0royalty next week when she will ask to be caned.\u00a0\u00a0Malaysia’s\u00a0 royals\u00a0(the country has nine sultans, one for each state on the peninsula)\u00a0don’t usually grant audiences to commoners, even part-time models such as Kartika, to discuss corporal punishment. But the\u00a0Malay royal families are officially in charge of religious affairs, and Kartika was convicted two years ago \u00a0in an Islamic court of drinking a beer.<\/p>\n

She’s already paid a\u00a05,000 ringgit ($1,469) fine in a case that has sparked a raging debate over the powers of Islamic courts to issue such rulings, because federal law shields women from such punishments. She has said repeatedly that she just wants to be caned<\/a> and be done with it. (And perhaps in the process\u00a0take a bit of revenge\u00a0given the storm of controversy over the case?)<\/p>\n

It’s not as if it’s going to\u00a0some horrific dungeon experience. Kartika is due to receive six strokes, administered by a woman policeman using a thin rattan\u00a0cane, while crouched fully clothed on the floor of a prison.<\/p>\n

But for all sides on the issue, it’s the principle that matters.<\/p>\n

Kartika’s unwanted celebrity resulted fromthe fact that she was going to be the first woman ever caned in Malaysia, a\u00a0 country whose \u00a027 million population has a small majority of Malays, and subtantial minorities of ethnic Indians, Chinese and tribals. She will no longer have that distinction. Malaysia announced last week that it had quietly caned three women<\/a> in December and January for having illicit sex.\u00a0 One of them told local media that it didn’t hurt.<\/p>\n

Malaysia’s Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said he wanted to publicise the canings because\u00a0there had been too many misunderstandings\u00a0about Kartika’s case. The canings did not hurt the women, but “they said it caused pain within.”<\/em> If he was hoping to defuse the issue, it doesn’t seem to be working.<\/p>\n

Sisters in Islam, a liberal activist group, questioned why the government waited so long to announce the caning of the three women.\u00a0 Rights groups say\u00a0caning women\u00a0is cruel, degrading and discriminatory. Authorities say it is basically harmless and a good deterrent.<\/p>\n

\"MALAYSIA-RELIGION\/\"<\/p>\n

Volunteers on nightly patrol at a church in a Kuala Lumpur suburb, 13 Jan 2010\/Bazuki Mohammad<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Amnesty International has urged Malaysia to end “an epidemic of caning,”<\/em> including such punishment meted out to thousands of men.\u00a0 The fact is that caning is not at all uncommon in Malaysia and not just for adults either. Schoolchildren in state schools are given a few whacks of the rattan across the palms of their hands for the usual kinds of hijinks. Spare the rod, spoil the country.<\/p>\n

Presumably, this is the message that the Malaysin government hopes to deliver if it succeeds in holding an international conference on the subject of caning women. Women’s Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said she would seek cabinet approval<\/a> to hold such a conference.<\/p>\n

Critics say the\u00a0sudden focus on caning and other Islamic fatwas — last year, Islamic authorities warned women not to wear trousers which they\u00a0saw as a slippery slope to lesbianism — is\u00a0\u00a0embarrasing and may\u00a0reveal a political agenda. <\/a>All the more so since it\u00a0comes amid the widely publicised trial of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim<\/a> on charges of consensual sex with a male aide. Homosexualilty is outlawed in Malaysia, but Anwar’s supporters note that even if he did it, his prosecution is selective at best since gay bars abound in the capital Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n

Violence erupted in January after the Supreme Court ruled that the Malaysian Catholic Church can use the word\u00a0 “Allah<\/a>” in its publications.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ruling coalition, \u00a0led by a Malay-Muslim party, suffered un unprecedented setback in the March 2008 general elections, because ethnic Chinese and Indians deserted\u00a0the coalition in droves, parlty over the issue of privileges and affirmative actionprogrammes for Malay-Muslims. Since then it has lost a series of by-elections and is seen to be trying to shore up its Islamic base, inhopes of\u00a0chipping away at the hardline Islamic party in the Islamic coalition.<\/p>\n

If that is the case, it is coming at a cost. The continuing religious and political turmoil\u00a0is keeping international investors on the sidelines <\/a>at a time when the export-led economy is beginningot emerge strongly from the 2008 global financial crisis.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n


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A Malaysian demonstrator in Kuala Lumpur during a protest in January against Christan use of the word Allah for God, 8 Jan 2010\/Bazuki Muhammad) Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a 33-year-old mother of two, will have an audience with Malaysian\u00a0royalty next week when she will ask to be caned.\u00a0\u00a0Malaysia’s\u00a0 royals\u00a0(the country has nine sultans, one for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5922,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5922"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}