Malaysian model canning sentence deferred for review

Women, Family & Communitry Development Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said at a press conference Tuesday that the order to whip Kartika six times gave the Syariah Court a “cruel.

This video was made by thestaronline

Puan Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno is a Muslim woman of Malaysian origin now resident in Singapore. She is married to a Singaporean, and they have two children. In the past her main job was as a hospital nurse, but she has also worked as a part-time model.

In 2007 she was arrested in Cherating in Pahang, Malaysia, for drinking Tiger beer in a hotel bar, and in 2009 she was sentenced by a religious court to six strokes of the cane and a fine. Only Muslims are subject to the religious court system, which has nothing to do with the ordinary criminal courts in Malaysia.

If the punishment is carried out, she would be the first woman to be caned under Sharia law in Malaysia, though not the only one to be so sentenced.

This has led to controversy, and Amnesty International has called for the sentence not to be carried out.

This kind of caning ordered by a religious court is quite different from, and much less severe than, judicial caning under Malaysian criminal law. It is intended to be shaming rather than particularly painful. The cane used is smaller and the recipient keeps his or her clothes on. It is administered with a “limp wrist” and without raising the arm.

Newspaper reports differ as to whether the caning would be administered to the back generally, or specifically to the buttocks.

Kartika has indicated that Kartika accepts her sentence, as the alternative would have appeals dragging on for up to two years, and she wanted to get the matter over with. She even wants the caning to be carried out in public to deter Muslims from drinking alcohol, but this request has not been accepted. Corporal punishment has never been administered in public in Malaysia.

There is a Facebook fan group in her defence, calling for the sentence not to be carried out, with an electronic petition.

On 23 August a Sharia judge and others cast doubt on the legality of the sentence imposed on her. It seems that a sentence of corporal punishment may be carried out only by prison authorities, but as imprisonment was not part of her original sentence her detention is illegal, a catch-22 situation.

A number of Malaysian women’s organisations have launched a campaign against the sentence, asking people to write to the Prime Minister and Attorney-General of Malaysia.

Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, the Malaysian Minister for Women, Family and Community Development, has expressed concern about the sentence and advised Kartika to appeal.

The Prime Minister of Malaysia has advised Kartika to appeal against her sentence, but she has declined to do so.

She was due to be taken to Kajang women’s prison on 24 August and the sentence was to be carried out at some point over the following seven days.

On the morning of 24 August she was picked up from her father’s house in a van to be taken to prison, but around an hour later she was returned, and told that, on the orders of the Attorney-General, the sentence will not now be carried out until the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Local officials insisted this was only a temporary postponement, but an unnamed senior government official was quoted as saying that it could be a step towards burying the affair. “Leave it to the sharia court, they know how to decide. The court has the power to revise the sentence and there are also laws that allow the sultan to pardon her,” this official is reported to have said.

On 25 August, Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, minister of women, announced that Kartika’s sentence would be postponed further, until a review of the law was completed.