A 42-year-old man was flogged at a mosque in Malaysia’s Terengganu state on Friday after being found guilty by an Islamic court of spending time alone with a woman who was neither his wife nor a member of his family. He received six lashes, according to the official Bernama news agency.
This is the first time that such a sentence, ordered by a Sharia court, has been carried out outside the court in Malaysia. In an orange prison jumpsuit, the man was taken to the mosque after Friday prayers to suffer his punishment in front of a silent crowd, reports an AFP journalist.
Dual legal system in Malaysia
This sanction aroused serious concern from the Malaysian Lawyers Association, which denounced an attack on human dignity. “Such punishments strip individuals of their dignity,” the association said. The Human Rights Commission also condemned the practice, saying that “sentences inflicting physical violence and public humiliation” had “no place in a modern justice system”.
Malaysia operates under a dual legal system, where Islamic courts can handle certain cases involving Muslim citizens. Although rare, flogging sentences imposed by these courts are not unheard of. In 2018, two women guilty of having sex were whipped in front of more than 100 people.
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