WUNRN
The Maldives,
officially the Republic of Maldives, is an island
country consisting of a group of atolls south-west of Sri Lanka
in the Laccadive Sea of Indian
Ocean. The twenty-six atolls of Maldives encompass a territory featuring 1,192 islets, of which
two hundred islands are inhabited. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldives
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Flogging is the act of methodically
beating or whipping the
human body.
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22 July 200
Almost 150 women living in the
Maldives face a public flogging for indulging in extra-marital sex after being
convicted by the Muslim country's conservative courts. Around 50 men also face
the punishment.
Earlier this month, an 18-year-old woman
fainted after she was flogged 100 times having been found guilty of having sex
with two different men. The woman, who was pregnant at the time of sentencing,
had her punishment deferred until after the birth of her child and the court
said the teenager's pregnancy was proof of her guilt. In contrast, the accused
men were acquitted, with one of them escaping punishment simply because he
denied the charge.
The head of the country's Criminal Court,
Judge Abdulla Mohamed, told the island's Minivan News that flogging was a
deterrent and not designed to cause injury and said the person carrying out the
punishment was prohibited from raising his arm higher than his shoulder.
"The public should know this lady or man have done these things and they
will stay away from these things," he said. As to why fewer men were
prosecuted, he said: "A man, after making this problem, will go away and
maybe the woman will have relations with more than one man and won't know who
was responsible. Or the man denies it."
But Amnesty International's Maldives
specialist, Abbas Faiz, called flogging "a cruel, inhuman and degrading
punishment which is banned by international human rights law. The practice is
humiliating and leads to psychological as well as physical scars for those
subjected to it for years. [It is] a form of torture." The most recent
official statistics available to the group date from 2006 and show that a total
of 184 people were sentenced to flogging for extra-marital sex under a penal
code that includes elements of Sharia law. Of those 146 were women, with the
majority of the punishments still to be carried out.
In the Maldives, an island nation made up of
more than 1200 atolls, the issue of flogging has become a political
battleground following the whipping of the teenager earlier this month outside
a government building in the capital, Male. Reports said that the women
required hospital treatment after she was flogged in front of a jeering crowd
of men.
Since then there have been a number of
demonstrations in favour of flogging and several articles published defending
its use. Since the case was publicised there have been a number of
demonstrations in support of flogging, some calling for the deportation of a
British journalist, Maryam Omidi, who published reports of the incident in the
local Minivan News. "It's hard to tell whether this is indicative of a
wider feeling, because people are afraid to speak out," Omidi said.
"But I had people calling me up to offer their support."
In its first free polls held last year, the
Maldives elected as its president Mohammed Nasheed, a former prisoner of
conscience. But campaigners say the liberally-inclined Mr Nasheed feels
prevented from speaking because of his dependence on Islamist coalition allies
and because of opponents who are using a debate over Sharia law as political
lever.
The Islamist Adhaalath Party, which is a
member of the coalition government, has denied organising these demonstrations.
Yet, some voices have spoken out. "We
don't cut off the hands of all those who steal and we don't implement the death
sentence so why do we continue with these very inhumane practices, especially
when the statistics show that the victims are women," said MP Eva Abdulla.
Reports suggest that in recent years, many
mosques in the Maldives have fallen under the influence of foreign,
conservative imams. The previous president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had been
Asia's longest-serving ruler and who positioned himself as the country's
"defender of Islam", had sought to use the religion to bolster his
dwindling. The government in turn said that more conservative forms of the
religion had been able to spread as restrictions on freedom of expression were
lifted.
For Mr Nasheed, a former political activist
who served six terms in jail, the controversy is a severe test. While his
inclinations may be of a moderniser, he remains dependent on the support of the
conservative Adhaalath Party. Indeed, the party is said to have a grip on the
ministry of Islamic Affairs which Mr Nasheed created last year, apparently a
political reward for its support.
Last night, presidential spokesman Mohamed
Zuhair told The Independent the government was committed to fulfilling its
obligations to international treaties that prohibit torture. He added:
"The president is holding meetings with all concerned parties to try and
deal with this."
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