“Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Jamil Khir requested for Hadi to alter his motion so that there will be a limitation (on the punishments),” Khairuddin said.
He added that details on the various offences and corresponding punishments would be decided by the state governments.
These would only apply to Muslims and involve offences such as pre-marital sex, adultery, drinking alcohol and qazaf (false accusation), he stressed.
Khairuddin also defended the proposed 100 times of whipping.
“Caning 100 times under civil and syariah law are different. Under syariah law, it’s like caning a child only. It’s just a light slap.
“A hundred strokes of the whip under syariah law is just like one stroke under civil law,” he said.
Hadi will now have to give notice to the Parliament secretary to alter his private member’s motion, taking into account the new punishment cap.
The changes came after a briefing organised by Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi for Muslim MPs on Hadi’s motion yesterday.
Hadi’s effort is often referred to as the ‘Hudud Bill’ as it would ultimately pave the way for the partial implementation of the Islamic penal code, specifically in PAS-ruled Kelantan, which has already passed an enactment to that effect.
For example, the punishment of whipping under the enactment ranges from 40 to 100 strokes.
However, the Kelantan state enactment cannot be implemented as long as the current punishment limits on the syariah court stands.
Meanwhile, PAS will organise a nationwide solat hajat after maghrib(dusk) prayers today, for Hadi’s bill
Hadi needs to be aware that his primitive and perverted punishment ideas will be counter-productive in the extreme in the field of moral probity, which he says he seeks to promote.
He talks lightly of “caning like a child only”. It is well known that the psychological damage of childhood whipping extends into many adult disorders, including sado-masochism and paedophilia.
Public displays of such a crude and vicious kind soon whets the blood lust of those within the crowd who hold such tendencies and it will lead to crimes by them against others. It will also start the slippery slope towards more and more violent and disgusting crowd-pleasing punishments.
Everyone knows that people who come from the most repressive societies are always the first to indulge in gross and abusive carnal practices of extreme kinds when they get the chance. Appalling activities by wealthy, ‘pious’ Arabs frequently shock the public in the “liberal” West.
Two wrongs do not make a right and violence begets violence. No religious person should therefore advocate combatting what he believes to be a sin by an act all know to be a sin, which is unnecessary violence.
It is unpleasant to consider the psychological motives of someone so bent on seeking out permission to inflict humiliation and pain on another person who has transgressed into temptation, but we all know that such impulses lurk at the bottom of many of the perversions in our society.
So, Hadi ought be wary of being painted in future minds as some kind of dirty old man by promoting this adoption of foreign cult practices and drop his distasteful and dangerous bill.