BANGI, April 26 — Women are required to prove rape under Islamic criminal law, Hizbut Tahrir Malaysia (HTM) said today as the hardline Islamist group claimed that most sexual assault cases involve false accusations.

HTM also told a seminar on hudud that Islam does not accept DNA evidence and that one of the ways of proving rape instead is by obtaining either two male witnesses, or one male and two female witnesses.

“The danger is that if the woman wants to betray other people, she commits adultery with a man, but when she regrets it, she reports to the police saying she was raped,” HTM spokesman Ustaz Abdul Hakim Othman said at HTM’s headquarters here today.

“As you see, most rape cases involve people known to the victims, especially their boyfriends. So making out with the boyfriend is fine, and then she turns around and says she was raped when she regrets it.  

The man will say it wasn’t rape; it was consensual. So Islam imposes careful conditions. You don’t just accuse a person of raping you, you have to come up with proof,” he added.

Adultery is among the offences punishable under the amended Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code 1993, or hudud law, that was passed by the Kelantan legislative assembly last March.

According to women’s rights group All Women’s Action Society (AWAM), 80 per cent of rape victims know their attackers, who are usually their relatives, friends or partners.

Damansara Utama assemblyman Yeo Bee Yin from the DAP said last Tuesday at the launch of a joint rape awareness campaign with AWAM that only two out of 10 rape cases are reported to the police on average.

HTM’s Abdul Hakim stressed today that rape and adultery are separate offences under the Islamic criminal justice system.

“If an unmarried woman is pregnant, definitely she’s committed an offence but she must explain. So if we ask her and she says she was raped, she’ll be released because she’s innocent,” he told the seminar.

“Islam doesn’t accept DNA evidence because obtaining witnesses is one of the conditions. Even if you can prove that male DNA was in the woman’s vagina, it doesn’t prove rape because DNA can enter by accident. DNA is not proof of rape. Other evidence like wounds in the vagina that show penetration is still not proof that it’s rape,” the HTM spokesman added.