Three Women Caned in Malaysia for Adultery

From CNN World

3 women caned in Malaysia for adultery
By Joe Sterling, CNN
February 17, 2010 2:41 p.m. EST

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- For the first time, Malaysian authorities have caned three Muslim women under Islamic law for acts of adultery, the Malaysian national news agency Bernama said.

Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein announced the canings Wednesday, saying the penalty was carried out February 9 at a women's prison near Kuala Lumpur.

The canings -- a punishment that persists across Malaysian society since the British colonial era of the 19th century -- have been denounced by one Amnesty International official, who says "caning is tantamount to torture."

But Hishamuddin said the punishment was carried out "to educate and make the offenders realize their mistakes and to return to the right path."

"It is hoped that the issue will not be wrongly interpreted to the extent of tarnishing the sanctity of Islam," he was quoted as saying. He also said the punishment did not cause any injury and that the women were remorseful and repented, Bernama reported.

The women were struck with a rattan cane. One woman was released Sunday after spending a month in prison, another will be released in the next few days, and the third will be released in June.

Malaysia, which considers itself a moderate Muslim country, has a dual-track justice system, in which Islamic courts operate alongside civil ones. Muslims make up about 60 percent of the country's population of 28 million.

Last year, a woman was sentenced to caning under Islamic law for drinking alcohol in public -- beer at a hotel bar -- and that case caused an uproar in the country. Malaysia forbids alcohol consumption by Muslims, even those who are visiting the country.

The caning sentence of Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno has been postponed while the issue is under review, and she said that if she were to be caned, she wanted the flogging to occur in public.

"Let's be transparent about it," said Kartika, a mother and part-time model. An Islamic court also fined her $1,400 for the act. She has pleaded guilty and paid the fine.

Lance Lattig, a researcher on Malaysia for the human rights group Amnesty International, told CNN that the vast majority of canings are applied to illegal immigrants by civil courts, but the latest examples indicate that sharia courts happen to be picking up on the practice.

"It's not Muslims on the march," he said. "It's the tip of the iceberg of the bigger problem."

No matter who does it, he says, the group considers caning to be "cruel, inhumane and degrading."

***********************************************************

How were these women charged with the "crime" of adultery? Who accused them? How does anyone know that these women committed adultery? What is the evidence?  If the women confessed, were the men they committed the "crime" with also arrested, tried, convicted, tossed into jail and caned? If not, why not? It takes two to commit the "crime" of adultery. A double standard is NOT justice, no matter how religious authorities try to twist the words of the Koran. The same punishment has to apply to both parties to the crime, or the entire premise of this "crime" is false - a hypocritical means of keeping "uppity women" in line.

Saudi Rape Victim "Pardoned"

Original article posted on November 16, 2007. From The New York Times. Saudi King Pardons Rape Victim Sentenced to Be Lashed, Saudi Paper Reports By KATHERINE ZOEPF Published: December 18, 2007 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — King Abdullah has pardoned a woman who was sentenced to 200 lashes after pressing charges against seven men who raped her, a Saudi newspaper reported Monday. There was no immediate confirmation from the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Information, but the paper, Al Jazirah, is close to the religious establishment that controls the Justice Ministry, Reuters reported. The case has provoked a rare and angry public debate in Saudi Arabia, leading to renewed calls for an overhaul of the Saudi judicial system. The rape took place a year and a half ago in Qatif, a small Shiite town in the Eastern Province, the center of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. The woman, who has been publicly identified only as the “Qatif girl,” said she met a former boyfriend to retrieve a photograph of herself. They were sitting in a car when seven men attacked, raping them both. The woman and her former boyfriend were originally sentenced to 90 lashes for being together in private, while the attackers received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison, and 80 to 1,000 lashes. For a woman to be meeting in private with a man who is not her husband or a relative is a crime in Saudi Arabia, where the legal code is based on a strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law. The woman’s lawyer, Abdulrahman al-Lahem, a well-known human rights activist, appealed, saying that the attackers’ sentences were too lenient and that of the victim was too harsh. The appeal brought down the wrath of the court. In November, it doubled the woman’s sentence and stripped Mr. Lahem of his license to practice, but it also increased the sentences of her attackers to prison terms of two to nine years. Mr. Lahem could not be reached by phone late Monday, but the editor in chief of Al Watan, a Saudi daily that Mr. Lahem writes for, said it had been known in Riyadh political circles since early this month that the woman would be pardoned. The editor, Jamal Khashoggi, said he believed that the timing of the pardon, on the eve of the Id al-Adha holiday, was coincidental. “I’ve been hearing for two or three weeks now that the pardon would be issued,” Mr. Khashoggi said in a telephone interview. “It has been expected that the girl would be pardoned in the end — in similar cases, very public cases like this, it has been the same,” he said. “One of our writers was recently sentenced to a number of lashes and received a pardon from the king.” Mr. Khashoggi said the woman, who has married, was not jailed while she appealed. There have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her to remove the “stain” to the family’s honor, and bloggers and international human rights activists have expressed concern for her safety. The Saudi minister of social affairs, Abdul Mohsin al-Akkas, reached by telephone, said Saudi women who ran into trouble with the law frequently feared retribution from their relatives. Some women who serve prison time refuse to leave prison at the end of their sentences, he said. The Ministry of Social Affairs operates shelters for those women, and Mr. Akkas said the Qatif victim would be able to live in one. “If after the pardon she decides that she needs housing because of her circumstances, then we will offer that,” he said. Commenting on the pardon, the Saudi justice minister, Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Sheik, told Al Jazirah that the king fully supported the verdicts against the woman but had decided to pardon her because it was in the “interests of the people.” Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University who specializes in Saudi Arabia, said that was a kind of “double message” commonly employed by the Saudi government. “On one hand this tells people, ‘We support our system and we will punish you if you violate it,’” he said. “Yet he’s also showing mercy. Throughout, he’s making it clear that he is not disagreeing with the judge’s opinion on this sensitive issue of sexual chastity, but he believes that there is a higher interest to be served by the pardon, whether that’s relationships between Shiites and Sunnis, or international opinion.” “Conservative scholars and judges will still take this pardon as a slap in the face,” Mr. Haykel continued. “These decisions are always made like this, ad hoc, so that the core values and institutions of the Saudi state are not questioned or threatened.” ********************************************************************************** What about the "sexual chastity" of the men who committed the rape - remember, both the female AND the male who was with her in the car were gang raped. What does this say about the "sexual chastity" of Saudi males? And - never mentioned - what kind of sentence did the male who was raped receive from the Islamic Court?