Rise of Islamic law in Malaysia

Muslim model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno (centre), 32, who is sentenced to be caned for drinking beer, holds the hand of her daughter Kaitlynn as she is escorted by Islamic religious officers to a waiting van to be taken away at her father's home in Karai, north of Kuala Lumpur. — PHOTO: AP

THE dramatic case of a Muslim model who faces caning for drinking beer in Malaysia has highlighted concerns Islamic law is on the rise and that the nation's secular status is under threat.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, was arrested at a hotel nightclub and sentenced to six strokes of the cane last month, in a rare prosecution of religious laws that ban alcohol for Malaysia's majority Muslim Malays.

Her insistence that she was ready to face her punishment and would not appeal threw government and religious authorities into a spin as they attempted to carry out the sentence against a woman for the first time.

As international headlines mounted, and foreign TV crews reported live from her family's home as the mother-of-two was detained ahead of the thrashing, she was abruptly released and the punishment is now on hold indefinitely.

'The overriding view was that the sentence meted out was too harsh and is not commensurate with the offence,' Women's Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil said as she announced the religious court would hold a review. 'We are equally concerned not only for Kartika Sari, but also for the fact that this one particular case could have damaged the image of Malaysia in its fair and just implementation of the Syariah law.'

Despite the queasiness in meting out the sentence, in a jail not far from the glittering capital Kuala Lumpur, Malay politicians have long been competing to be seen as more pious than the other.

The dynamic of 'political Islam", which has alarmed Malaysia's minority ethnic Chinese and Indians, has gone into overdrive since 2008 elections that humiliated the long-serving Barisan Nasional coalition.

The United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) which leads the coalition and needs Malays as its bedrock, is being challenged by the conservative Islamic party PAS, a member of the resurgent Pakatan Rakyat opposition.

Azmi Sharom, an associate professor in the law faculty of Universiti Malaya, said that in their eagerness to display their religious credentials, politicians were failing to check the creeping authority of the Syariah courts which operate in a dual-track system with the civil courts.

Syariah courts can prosecute Muslims for certain offences including drinking alcohol and 'proximity' or illicit contact with the opposite sex. While enforcement has been lax in the past, it is now becoming more aggressive, and the scope of the religious courts appears to be expanding.

Mr Azmi said the government, which is keen to preserve Malaysia's reputation as a progressive and moderate Muslim nation, was skirting the issue by urging Kartika to appeal. – The Straits Times

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Harussani Zakaria, the mufti for northern Perak state – an Islamic scholar empowered to give rulings on the Syariah – endorsed the push for stricter implementation of Islamic law.

'People will ask, you have this law, why don't you practise it? When we practise it, then the government interrupts the process,' he complained, adding that Kartika should be punished swiftly.

The influential cleric said Malaysia would be better off if all citizens, including non-Muslims, were subject to Islamic law including 'hudud' penalties like stoning adulterers and chopping off thieves' hands.

Zaid Ibrahim, a former cabinet minister in charge of legal affairs who quit last September and later switched to the opposition, said problems can arise if sharia pronouncements conflict with the constitution.

'But which Malay political leaders from either side of the political spectrum dare touch it?' he said. 'So the hardliners can and will always push and push and Malaysia will no longer be a liberal and moderate modern state.'