Lawmakers in the Malaysian state of Pahang are considering legalising the caning of gay people.
Two women in the northeastern state of Terengganu received six lashings each on Monday for having gay sex.
The sentence was handed down last month after the women, who are 32 and 22, pleaded guilty to having sex in a car. They were caught by Sharia enforcement officials.
The director of Pahang’s Islamic Religious Department, Mohamad Noor Abdul Rani, welcomed the punishment and said it could spread to his state.
“We support [the caning sentence] as it shows the beauty of Islam but in Pahang, we have not decided yet and will look into it,” he said, according to New Straits Times.
His department is responsible for passing religious laws, which exist alongside civil legislation in Malaysia’s legal system.
Amnesty International’s Malaysia Researcher, Rachel Chhoa-Howard, told PinkNews that Monday’s canings represented “the first time to our knowledge that caning has been meted out for consensual same-sex relations in Malaysia.”
But, she continued: “As long as draconian legislation which criminalises Malaysians based on their sexual orientation and gender identity remains on the books, LGBTI people will continue to be at risk of this type of punishment.”
Rani, whose state is larger than Terengganu and home to 1.6 million people, warned that anyone who has gay sex will eventually “incur the wrath and anger of Allah.”
He said: “To date, we have signboards reminding people to stay away from committing vice and now we will put up the LGBT boards as part of the measures to tackle the problem.
“We will one day reach the stage of implementing [punishment], so educating the people will be continuously carried out as a reminder to the community to stop their acts which will only incur the wrath and anger of Allah.”
The official added that transgender people would have to renounce their chosen gender—or face retribution from his department.
“We conduct activities with Persatuan Insaf [a non-governmental organisation] to engage the transgender community to have strong ties with the religion and guide them back to the original path,” he said.
“We want to give them awareness and at the same time also support the sentencing carried out through the Islamic law as we want to educate the young generation on LGBT.”
Gay sex is banned across the country, which groups it together with bestiality in a list of offences which are “against the order of nature.”
Malaysia is currently embroiled in a political furore over LGBT+ rights, sparked by government minister Mujahid Yusof Rawa’s order to an arts festival to remove its portraits of local queer activists last month.
After this inflammatory decision, taken after the new government came to power in May, Malaysian police raided a gay bar in Kuala Lumpur.
Authorities have said the police action was carried out to “mitigate the LGBT culture from spreading into our society.”
The Save Malaysian LGBT Community, which has more than 3,000 followers on Facebook, told PinkNews that these latest developments were “really worrying.”
A spokesperson for the group predicted: “People will try to track down all LGBTQ people and get them punished.
“Local people will try to kill or harm LGBTQ people [because of their] religious and cultural beliefs.”
Malaysia is not the only country in southeast Asia where citizens can be punished under Sharia law for having gay sex.
Last year in Indonesia, a gay couple was sentenced to 83 lashes each as a legal punishment for having consensual sex.
Source: Pink News, Josh Jackman, September 4, 2018
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde