Hudud law likened to buying, driving a car

The hudud laws that the Kelantan PAS government is planning to implement in the state was today likened to the simple act of buying a driving a car.

At a Sinar Harian forum about the controversial Islamic criminal law, Kelantan deputy menteri besar Datuk Mohd Amar Abdullah pleaded for the public to give the law a chance before jumping to conclusions about its feasibility.

"This law is not recognised by the laws of the country (Federal Constitution) yet, we are just putting the Islamic laws in its proper place. We are just about to buy the car, not driving the car yet. Let the laws exist first before we talk about the car getting into accidents," Mohd Amar told a packed forum entitled Hudud: Bersediakah kita? (Hudud: Are we ready for it?) here.

Mohd Amar insisted that the state was ready to implement as early as 2015 except for a few improvements that PAS lawyers were working on.

He assured that non-Muslims would not be subjected to hudud laws if they were implemented in the state, and that the laws were strict enough to not easily allow accused persons to have their hands chopped or stoned.

However, using the same analogy of hudud being a car, MCA deputy president Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong said the country does not have the necessary criteria to accept such laws, and that it fundamentally goes against the Federal Constitution.

"There are indeed obstacles to this. Because we don't even have roads, only rivers, how can we talk about buying or driving a car?"

Wee said MCA would continue to fight the hudud that PAS is introducing as it has a lot of contradictions with existing laws such as the Penal Code, and it went against the the country's ideals when Malaysia was first formed.

"It is clear that in rape there must be four witnesses. If there is a kafir (non-Muslim) and a Muslim raping a Muslim person, the Muslim is punished but another gets away, is that fair?" asked Wee, who also questioned the witness system of having four Muslim males.

Meanwhile, academic and former Perlis mufti Prof Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin stressed that a right condition is needed before hudud can implemented.

He said if the "runway" is not built properly, a plane (in this case, hudud) cannot be landed safely.

"We support PAS in their intent to have hudud but we need it to be looked at properly. It also needs to be done at the right time, not in a rushed manner," said Dr Asri, citing examples of how one cannot fix a beautiful door on a broken house; or a beautiful woman with a man of bad character.

"(The laws of) Hudud needs to be truly discussed so that we get the feedback of all people. We can question and criticise the implementation," said Dr Asri.

He said the country needed to be in a "utopian" state where there was no reason for crimes such as stealing to occur before Syariah law can be talked about.

"Hudud is only a small part of a bigger discussion of having an Islamic country that is full of goodness, that is free from corruption, from crime and has social justice in place," he said.

The Kelantan government is expected to table a private members bill in Parliament as early as June to enable the Syariah Criminal Offences Enactment II 1993 to be implemented in the state.