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New PAS leadership has the first opportunity to show that it can transform PAS into a moderate, progressive and modern-minded movement fully cognizant of Malaysia’s multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-religious milieu by opposing the imposition of the caning punishment on two Muslim brothers in Kuantan for the syariah offence of drinking alcohol Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Parliament, Wednesday): The New PAS leadership has the first opportunity to show that it can transform PAS into a moderate, progressive, global-looking and modern-minded movement fully cognizant of Malaysia’s multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-religious milieu by opposing the imposition of the caning punishment on two Muslim brothers in Kuantan for the syariah offence of drinking alcohol. Brothers Mohd Nizam Ibrahim, 32 and Mohd Nasha, 30, were yesterday sentenced to receive the maximum six strokes of the rotan and fined RM5,000 each by the Pahang Syariah High Court. They were caught drinking stout at a restaurant in Kuantan on August 19 last year.
The decision by the Pahang Syariah High Court possibly the first time in the nation’s modern history sentencing Muslims convicted of drinking alcohol in public to caning is the latest blow to Malaysia’s international reputation, which had suffered a setback 36 hours earlier, when the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative Dr. Richard Leete and his family were held up at gunpoint and robbed of his diplomat’s car outside the Bangsar shopping complex on Sunday night.
While there can be no objection to the syariah law on the offence of drinking alcohol, Malaysians, both Muslims and non-Muslims, are entitled to cringe and react at the imposition of punishments in Malaysia which are regarded as cruel, inhuman, inhumane or excessive in the 21st century.
The syariah enactment which has been invoked by the Pahang Syariah High Court is not passed by PAS but by UMNO, in its competition to out-PAS PAS. There are many syariah enactments in UMNO-run states which contain provisions which if implemented will not reflect well either on Malaysia as a moderate, progressive, modern nation with a plural society.
The first and most effective step for the new PAS leadership to demonstrate that it could deliver on its pledge of a moderate, progressive, global-looking and modern-minded movement fully sensitive of the dynamics of a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-lingual society is to put a stop to the negative competition between PAS and UMNO to out-Islam each other, by speaking up to oppose the imposition of the caning punishment on brothers Mohd izam Ibrahim and Mohd Nasha.
(15/06/2005)
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