PAS Youth slams SIS, JAG, calls for boycott

PAS Youth today slammed Sisters in Islam (SIS) and the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality ( JAG ) for challenging the Kuantan Syariah appellate court's decision to uphold its sentence on Kartika.

Enraged that two civil groups had lashed out at a Syariah court decision, PAS Youth called on the government to take stern action against the two bodies for "insulting the Syariah court and belittling Syariah laws".

"Religious scholars see this as a malicious attack against Islam and being rude to the Syariah court," said PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi ( right ) in a statement.

He said this in response to the two NGOs taking up cudgels on behalf of mother of two girls Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno who was fined RM5,000 and sentenced to be caned on July 20 by a Pahang Syariah Court for drinking in public last year.

He added that "if a six-stroke whipping in an Islamic way is considered cruel, then letting drunkards engage in casual sex and commit murder is not cruel".

According to Islamic law sex outside marriage is considered a crime.

PAS challenge to SIS

Nasrudin also challenged SIS executive director Hamidah Marican ( below ) to an "open intellectual debate" with PAS Youth members on the issue.

"Why is the Syariah Court's whipping sentence is seen as more cruel while the same sentence meted by the civil court is of no consequence to them? What do they really want?

"Are they trying to exert pressure on the Syariah court and religious authorities to take no action against wrongdoers?

"Or do they take pride and delight in a lawless country that in the name of 'human rights' allows its citizens to do as they please even though it goes against religion?" he asked.

Urging Muslims to reject and boycott SIS and JAG, Nasrudin also said that the bodies' argument reflects their ignorance of Islam.

If six strokes could generate so much hue and cry, he could not imagine what would happen if 40 to 80 strokes had been ordered under the actual Syariah law.