Man who advocated caning for adultery gets caned for adultery

Most interesting, thank you.  My apologies for the delay in replying but the system I was using was in a bad temper last night after I’d given it a good kicking to force it to install Microsoft’s atrocious 1903 update. It had refused on 4 previous occasions, but as those old time US schoolmasters American Way regularly links knew so well, a good thrashing always overcomes resistance in the end!   

Alas poor Mukhlis!  What can one say?  It is perhaps most fitting to quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 4:

They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard

Perhaps we should though have some sympathy for the unfortunate woman who was the other half of the adultery offence as she got 23 strokes at the same public caning session.

Further, on studying the video on the Daily Mail site (if that  is a video on the CNN site you link I can’t make it play) I am convinced that she was whacked harder than her partner in crime.  The kneeling posture women are made to adopt while being caned allows for a longer arc of swing and it appears to me that the caner took full advantage of it.  Have a look here and see if you agree.

I found your link particularly interesting because for some time I hadn’t kept an eye on the public caning situation in Aceh.  Back in 2017, around the period when Islamic Courts in some Malaysian States were considering introducing public canings along the same lines as those in Aceh, the then Governor of Aceh announced that it was his intention to cease the public canings there as they were affecting development and trade due to adverse international publicity.

This was a setback as I depended on Aceh for my recommendations to the occasional lunatics enthusiasts who visited the Forum seeking to know where in the world they might go to get themselves publicly caned AND be assured of a video of the event as a souvenir.  It seemed to me to be my duty to try to protect these people from their folly and try to ensure their safety.  After all, amazingly the first of ’em was actually considering Saudi Arabia as the location for his escapade!

Now Aceh might be a bit off the normal tourist track, but compared to Saudi Arabia it has one huge advantage.  If your trial and sentence don’t go exactly to plan you aren’t likely to find yourself being publicly beheaded rather than publicly caned!

Aceh’s other advantages are that unlike most other jurisdictions where Islamic Courts operate in parallel to Civil Courts, in Aceh the public caning sentence can be imposed on both genders and on persons of any or no religious persuasion and any nationality, not just on local followers of Islam.

As far as I am aware, although Christians and Buddhists and possibly other persons outwith Islam have been publicly caned, so far they have all been Aceh residents.  However a very specific statement on the subject made it clear that for some offences anyone, including foreign visitors, would automatically be dealt with by Islamic Courts Courts and for some other offences they would have the option of being dealt with by the Civil or Islamic Courts.  Further in the Islamic Courts a public caning sentence was one of the potential penalties.

Two Buddhist males, caned for arranging cock fights and the betting thereon are said to have chosen to be dealt with by the Islamic Court because the probable penalty there was the public caning whereas in the Civil Court it was imprisonment.

Clearly it was only a matter of time before a western tourist  found him or herself the centre of attention on the Aceh public caning stage, and it became my standard recommendation to our would be participants in such a ceremony.  A little ingenuity and a capable local lawyer should readily yield the desired result.

Indeed, when the opening shots of the Youtube video of one public caning session revealed  this scene as an unfortunate male was escorted onto the stage for his whacks I almost booked a trip myself!    Alas it turned out that the young lady was only holding the cane temporarily for the man in the mask, so I didn’t.  

So all in all the news that Aceh was likely to abandon public canings was a bit of a problem for my self imposed advice giving function.  Newer contenders might have some attractions for our occasional visitors seeking to be publicly caned.  For instance it was announced in respect of one of the Malaysian States then considering implementing the penalty in its Islamic Courts that there’d be none of that gentle handling of those being caned.  The object was public shaming and handcuffs and chains and a bit more emphasis of the recipient’s prisoner status would be entirely consistent with that.

But whatever innovations might be introduced there was one snag.  Having to convert to Islam might be a bridge too far for our occasional visitors.  And only Aceh appeared to offer the possibility of a relatively safe experience where that wasn’t necessary.  

So it was a relief to learn, after a bit of research following dane‘s above post, that the District Governor who was proposing to ban the public canings in Aceh became involved in corruption allegations and had other things on his mind.  There is a potential problem in that when the public canings were introduced the same chap held out against and prevented the introduction of more drastic penalties like stoning, but so far it appears the worst hasn’t happened.

Aceh is never going to be the perfect solution for our more extrovert seekers after public flagellation.  This is a deeply conservative Islamic society.  Outer garments are going to stay firmly in place and be covered by one of those gown type thingies.  Those who really want to be stripped and strapped down for their caning are going to have to settle for vandalising trains or whatever and a non-public caning in a Singapore prison or something similar.

However for former contributor Dave and his ilk, should any more of them appear, I can continue to recommend Aceh.  And there’s got to be some mileage for somebody in being the first visitor to be publicly whacked.  Never say Another_Lurker doesn’t do his very best for our contributors!  

Thank you for your confirmation that you too thought the cane strokes received by the woman were harder than those given to the man.  As you note women do seem to get a rough deal in Islamic justice systems..  This is not necessarily so in the parallel civil judicial system if there is one.

In Malaysia for instance women can be sentenced to the cane in the Islamic Courts in some states.  However they are not subject to JCP at all in the civil system although for males there are two levels of JCP.  A school type caning over the trousers but in court and with medical exam etc. for those under 21 and the full fig, in a prison on the bare bottom stripped and strapped to a tripod, for those up to age 50 and in some cases older.

You mention the Maldives, which is of course a major destination for Western tourists.  I’ll bet very few of them are aware that women are subjected to JCP there because they aren’t affected.   However I recall a press article from 10 years ago saying that 150 women and 50 men were awaiting floggings for adultery.  For women this could be 100 lashes in public.

A couple of my acquaintance were on holiday in the Maldives at the time.  I didn’t mention the subject when they returned.  They certainly weren’t Independent readers and provided the hotel had a private beach and a swimming pool I doubt if they even knew for sure what country they’d visited and where in the world it was.

Returning to Aceh, when the public canings were first introduced they were pretty mild.  However the rules were altered to allow the caner to use more vigorous strokes a little before the scope was extended to non-muslims and, in theory at least,to  foreigners.

The kneeling posture imposed on women allows the caner to take full advantage of the rules and deliver quite a powerful and clearly painful stroke.  Further, in some of the videos extant the women to be caned  are pushed, shoved and roughly handled by the escorts and jeered by the crowd far more than the men,  especially on initial arrival and transfer from the vehicles bringing them to the site.

Were this Forum to be visited by any females seeking advice on a venue to experience being publicly whacked with a video of the event I think I could with a clear conscience advise them that a visit to Aceh could fit the bill and be a pretty testing experience fully meeting all their expectations.  But to males with the same object I’d have to say “but if you’re looking for anything like the real thing, forget it”.  Curiously while there have been two or three males  I don’t recall any ladies presenting here with such a requirement.  I suspect they have more sense!