KUALA LUMPUR, April 7 — Muslim doctors who are willing to perform amputations under PAS-led Kelantan’s Shariah criminal laws are going against Islam on top of breaching their professional code, a group of retired senior civil servants said today.

The group dubbed G25 was weighing in on a recent disclosure by the state’s hudud implementation committee panellist Dr Azhar Abdullah that a group of Muslim medical experts had volunteered to perform the controversial punishments, even going as far as to “resign temporarily” from the medical service.

In a statement today, G25 told the doctors that the Hippocratic Oath that underlines the ethics of their profession is also echoed in the fundamental principles of Islam: respect for a person’s autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

“It should therefore leave no doubt for Muslim doctors that partaking in amputation, stoning and the death penalty not only contravene their professional ethical principles but also that of Islam,” it said.

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The group stressed that the core issue surrounding the ongoing debate on PAS’ hudud bills — among 24 motions listed today in the Dewan Rakyat’s order paper for discussion — is the question of justice.

Pointing out that justice is the cornerstone of the Shariah legal system, G25 asked, “Where is the equality and justice when the Hudud laws as currently proposed do not provide adequate protection for the poor and women?”

It welcomed the Health director-general’s reminder to all doctors to “first do no harm” and the Health Ministry’s order that doctors in the public sector that they are barred from cutting off any limb from criminals under hudud laws.

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G25 also pointed out that neither PAS nor the Kelantan government it leads has defined the medical implications in carrying out amputations, stoning, caning and other corporal punishments under its Shariah penal code.

“In health care, respecting people's autonomy has many implications. It requires medical practitioners to consult their patients and obtain their agreement before things are done unto them, a process that is unlikely to occur in hudud,” it said.

Malay Mail Online reported last week Azhar telling a public forum in Universiti Malaya that the Kelantan hudud implementation committee in which he sits that an unnamed group of medical specialists, which included a surgeon and an anaesthetist, had offered their services to carry out the Shariah corporal penalties.

“For the Muslim doctor society, they see the punishment as not contradicting to their profession as doctors, to amputate patients and convicted criminals. Because to them it is a responsibility,” Azhar told the organised by University of Malaya Muslim Students Association on April 1.

“If they are given the mandate, elected by the sultan, then at that time maybe they will choose to resign temporarily while they administer the punishment,” he added.

It is unclear how the Muslim doctors can quit their profession “temporarily” as Azhar did not elaborate.

Last year, the Malaysian Medical Association vowed it will seek to disqualify surgeons who perform the unethical amputations on criminals convicted under hudud in Kelantan, and warned that it will lodge police reports against non-doctors performing the punishment.

Under Kelantan’s hudud law, the offences of theft (sariqah) and robbery (hirabah) can be punishable by amputation of a limb.

Despite that, Azhar sought to allay the public’s fears by claiming that Kelantan wishes to implement the controversial Islamic criminal law in stages.

He reiterated the state government’s explanation that the first stage of punishments will only involve whipping, which is prescribed for Islamic crimes such as alcohol consumption (syurb), illicit sex (zina), false accusation of zina (qazaf), and anal sex (liwat).

The more extreme punishments under the Shariah penal code that have been passed in the Kelantan assembly include stoning to death and crucifixion, apart from amputations.