A Muslim Brother is wrong about no woman who have been raped ever being subjected to hudud (Islamic penal code) punishment in countries under hudud laws in his letter Critics' fear of hudud unfounded .
These cases show why we should fear hudud :
In Zamfara state, Nigeria this year, the man who raped Safiya Husseini, a 38-year-old grandmother of five, admitted to the police that he had committed the crime. In the Syariah Court, realising the punishment was death, he retracted his confession.
The judge then dismissed the case against the man but sentenced Safiya to death by stoning by 1988 over 6,000 women were accused of hudud crimes and jailed, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
In 1997, the number of women in Pakistan jails for the offence of zina were reported to be over 23,000 according to the website .
Most of them were accused by relatives intent on keeping them in forced marriages or because the women did not agree with the relative's choice of husband. Men are hardly to be found in jails for the same offence when there should really be an equal number of men in prison for the same offence.
The accused women spend many months in jail before their cases are heard. Many are acquitted which show that most of the cases have no basis and have been trumped up.
But for rape, especially for girls and women who have become pregnant as a result, pregnancy is used as proof. Girls as young as 12 or 13 have been convicted of zina and publicly whipped, even though they have been raped. One can only imagine how many more cases go unreported for fear of persecution and/or execution.
Criminologists estimate that for every one sexual crime reported, nine are not. In environments where the possibility of being convicted along with the perpetrator is high, it stands to reason that this ratio would be even higher.
So, please do not tell me these things have not happened in this "modern age" and please do not tell me that the above are just and fair. There is no space in Islam for injustice and cruelty. To allow such injustice as seen in the above cases are highly inconsistent and incoherent with the spirit of Islam which demands a high degree of justice and compassion.
These are events that have been reported worldwide and received international condemnation. A Muslim Brother could uphold justice by joining the chorus of outrage and condemnation against these atrocities which are being perpetrated against women like Bariya, Safia, Zafran and Safiya under the guise of religion, instead of creating adversaries out of people who are seeking justice.
Closer to home, a 17-year-old girl was charged together with her father for incest at the Kelantan Syariah Court in 2001. She was charged and found guilty, albeit under the Kelantan Syariah Offences Act (not the Hudud and Qisas laws), as a willing participant in the 'sexual offence'. The father pleaded guilty, while the daughter, who was unrepresented and had not received any legal advice or counsel, initially pleaded not guilty.
After a discussion with her mother over the telephone, she broke down and changed her plea. The issue of moral ascendancy, the power and authority a father has over a daughter, appears to have been disregarded. This does not instill confidence that the authorities are sensitised to the issues of rape and incest and in fact reflects a certain mindset that every woman is somehow a femme fatale .
As for the perceived 'misguidedness' with regard to policing of the private lives of the individual, A Muslim Brother seems to have conflated and confused two separate issues. I assure A Muslim Brother that I am well aware of the issue of repentance versus confession with regard to "personal offences", sins for which one pays in the hereafter. I agree with Terengganu Menteri Besar Abdul Hadi Awang that repentance is the key — although this is not reflected anywhere in the Bill.
A Muslim Brother seems to have missed the actual point that was being made, i.e. regarding the public policing of private lives. The current practice, under the existing syariah systems in all states, of apprehending people who do not fast, go to Friday prayers or those suspected of khalwat (close proximity) are already forms of monitoring and regulating the private lives of Muslims. The fact that this has not even come up in the deliberations and discussions on the Hudud Bill give rise to the suspicion that this form of monitoring of private lives will continue.
Islam unequivocally respects privacy. This is affirmed by the traditions of the Prophet and the practices of the companions. If the Terengganu Hudud Bill wanted to also uphold the spirit of privacy, it could have had a section penalising the officers or individuals that enter homes and buildings to arrest couples for khalwat , for example, and would take great efforts to dismantle all forms of monitoring of private lives.
In the absence of these considerations, one can only conclude that the practice of monitoring private lives will continue under the implementation of the hudud laws . It is this aspect that I feel needs to be discussed and debated rationally, i.e. the boundaries between private 'offences' and public crimes.
