KUALA LUMPUR, May 10 — The Chinese aversion to hudud is due purportedly to the community’s penchant for labels that caricaturise subjects, a PAS lawmaker asserted today in a bid to explain the resistance towards the Islamic penal code.
To illustrate the community’s predilection for stereotypes despite efforts to encourage more accurate labels, Parit Buntar MP Mujahid Yusof Rawa said the Chinese term for Muslims was “Hui Chjow Ren” based on the view that the Huis from China were predominantly followers of Islam.
He said this led to Islamist party PAS being consequently known as “Hui Chjow Tang” — the party of the Huis — despite its efforts to convince the Chinese community to refer to it as “Ye Si Lan Tang” or the Islamic party.
This practice, he said, also coloured the community’s views of hudud.
“They call it the ‘limb-cutting law’ or its direct translation, ‘amputation law’. While some interpret it as ‘Islamic criminal law, the previous terms have caused fear of hudud,” he wrote in an essay attempting to dissect the Chinese “psyche” today.
He also asserted that the Chinese community was fiercely protective of its language, culture and practices, saying that it feared that the introduction of hudud would threaten to dilute these.
Mujahid claimed that this stemmed from existing fears that the community’s rights were being snatched away, although he did not elaborate on what these might be or who was taking these away.
He added that their concerns that hudud may not be limited to Muslims also stemmed from the many uprisings against unfair rule during the time of the ancient Chinese dynasties, though he did not establish how this affected the ethnic Chinese in contemporary Malaysia.
PAS insists that critics of its plans to implement hudud in Kelantan do so out of a failure to comprehend the Islamic penal code.
Earlier this week, PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said that ignorance was driving opponents to stand in the way of the party’s bid to implement hudud.
In 1993, the PAS state government passed the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code Enactment II, allowing it to impose the strict Islamic penal code in the state. But the laws have not been implemented.
PAS is now looking for parliamentary approval to implement hudud. It plans to put forward two private members’ bills in Parliament. One seeks approval for unconventional punishments, some of which are for offences already covered in the Penal Code. The other seeks to empower Shariah courts to mete out the unconventional punishments.
According to the Shariah Courts (Criminal) Jurisdiction Act 1965, the Islamic court cannot sentence offenders to more than three years in jail or fine them more than RM5,000. It also cannot sentence offenders to be whipped more than six times.
Legal experts insist that hudud cannot be implemented in Malaysia as it would be unconstitutional. They also pointed to complexities in enforcing a law in which non-Muslims could not be compelled to appear.
