The Muslim women’s rights group said shaming and punishment would only create an increasingly repressive environment that would affect women and the poor disproportionately as in Acheh, pointing out that the Indonesian province’s Shariah laws have extended to non-Muslims too.
“Do not deceive the Muslim population here by brandishing the holy religion of Islam to justify these deplorable actions,” said SIS in a statement.
“As Malaysians, we demand that the Kelantan state government repeal the amendment in the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Procedure Enactment 2002 and observe Article 5 of the Universal Declaration Human Rights (UDHR) that no one shall be subjected to torture, cruel or degrading form of punishment,” the group added.
The Kelantan state legislative assembly yesterday passed amendments to its state Syariah Criminal Procedure Enactment that would allow Shariah offenders to be caned publicly.
SIS stressed that Islam was a religion of compassion.
“It is mentioned in the Qur’an (16:125), ‘Invite all to the way of the Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching, and reason with them in the ways that are best and most gracious’. Any laws passed under the name of Islam must take into account the most fundamental teachings of the Qur’an based on justice and mercy and the right to preserve human dignity. Even in the verses regarding punishment in the Qur’an (5: 38-39 and 5:33-34), God stressed the qualities of mercy and forgiveness,” said the group.
The women’s rights group also pointed out that Kelantan, long governed by Islamist party PAS, has high rates of rape, incest and pornography.
“Repression, shaming, and punishment does not lead to higher Islamic values,” said SIS, urging the federal government to intervene.
PAS is aiming to enforce the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code II 1993 amended in 2015, its version of hudud, but may not do so until legal barriers are removed at the federal level.
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