Amendments involve only venue of punishment, says Jamil Khir

GURUN: The Kelantan government’s plan to introduce public caning for syariah offenders should not be turned into polemics as it is merely a move to shift the punishment from inside the prison to outside it.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom also stressed that the plan was in accordance with syariah law and applicable only to Muslims.

Furthermore, he said, the move was nothing new in the country as it had been implemented in Tawau, Sabah, where offenders were caned in court, instead of prison.

Jamil, who is also an Umno Supreme Council member, said public caning was passed under the amendment of the Syariah Criminal Procedure Enactment 2002, which means that it will not involve non-Muslims.

He said sentences such as the number of strokes remained the same and that the only difference was the venue of the punishment.

“Do not make public caning an issue because the punishment has long existed under syariah law. Kelantan only amended the enactment in terms of shifting the venue where the punishment will be carried out,” he said after opening the Jerai Umno Youth delegates’ meeting in Guar Chempedak yesterday.

On Wednesday, the Kelantan state assembly passed an amendment to the Syariah Criminal Procedure Enactment 2002, which calls for offenders to be caned in public for the offences of zina (adultery), false accusations of zina, sodomy and alcohol consumption.

The Sabah syariah court was the first in the country to carry out public caning, but limited this to the court’s compound.

It was reported that state syariah chief judge Datuk Jasri @ Nasip Matjakir had said that two public canings had been conducted at prisons in Sabah about six years ago, while the recent public caning was carried out in the Tawau syariah court last year.