DAP vows to block hudud rollout in Selangor
(Malay Mail Online) – The DAP said today it will thwart any attempt by Selangor Barisan Nasional’s (BN) to push for hudud in the country’s most-industrialised state.
The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) component party’s state deputy chairman Gobind Singh Deo said the party will remain steadfast in its stand that the Islamic penal code is “unconstitutional”.
“The position applies with equal, if not more, force to state enactments as criminal laws can only be passed by Parliament and not by any state assembly,” he said in a statement here.
“We reiterate this and say again that we in the DAP will firmly oppose any move to introduce hudud in Selangor.”
Gobind was responding The Malay Mail Online’s report earlier today that BN, the state’s opposition coalition, is set to finalise whether or not to propose a study to push out the controversial religious enactment at the next sitting of the Selangor legislative assembly, which starts next Monday.
Speaker Hannah Yeoh confirmed the study on hudud to be among four proposals she received from BN for debate.
The proposal which seeks to look into the possibility of enforcing hudud in Selangor, was submitted by Sungai Air Tawar BN assemblyman Kamarol Zaki Abdul Malik last week.
Despite being a multi-racial national coalition, in the legislative assembly, BN is only represented by 12 Umno assemblymen, as its other component party members were wiped out last year’s general election.
Pakatan controls the 56-member assembly with 44 lawmakers – 15 from DAP, 15 from PAS and 14 from PKR.
Selangor PAS has previously been reported expressing its support for hudud to be implemented in Kelantan.
PAS-led Kelantan renewed its intention to table two private member’s bills, in April, to amend federal laws blocking the implementation of its 1993 state enactment Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code Enactment II.
But the plan to impose the strict Islamic penal code in the east coast state stonewalled amid staunch resistance from its PR partners, particularly DAP.
The Kelantan state government had then conceded to allow a proposed bi-partisan technical committee, comprising of members of the state and the federal government, to study the implementation of the Islamic penal code.
The Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) has also allegedly proposed in a working paper by its Shariah-Civil Technical Committee recently for hudud to be rolled out nationwide in two stages.
The first stage will involve amendments of several federal and state laws, following which each state’s Shariah criminal offences enactments can be amended to prescribe hudud punishments for four offences: zina (illicit sex), alcohol consumption, apostasy and making unproven accusations against zina.
