Death for mother of nine: Where is the noise?
From Sheith Khidhir
Timah, the name of a local award-winning brand of whisky, was the top news in the week of Oct 18 to 24. Opinion writers, journalists and netizens couldn’t seem to stop sharing views and news on the subject.
Celebrity cosmetics entrepreneur Nur Sajat was also thrust into the limelight, especially following foreign reports of her new life in Australia and how backwards and bigoted Malaysia was for causing so much trouble for a member of the transgender community.
This article’s purpose is neither to condemn anyone’s opinion nor to put forth its own argument regarding either of the topics. Instead, it looks at one story that no writer or netizen seem to care much about.
On Oct 15, Hairun Jalmani, a 55-year-old mother of nine, was given the death sentence at the Tawau High Court in Sabah over possession of methamphetamine.
That the death sentence is pronounced on drug offenders is not news for Malaysia and most of Southeast Asia. Among the few who did share their opinions regarding Hairun, most were supportive of her conviction and sentencing, to hell with how many mouths she had to feed or her position as a poor single mother, living in one of the poorest states in the country, selling fish for a living.
See Hua Daily had a video of Hairun crying while being escorted out of the courtroom. In the clip, she can be heard asking how her children would be cared for after her death.
Still, according to most Malaysians, this woman deserves death. She was, after all, found guilty with a significant amount of methamphetamine (113.9 grams) and the law is the law.
The law is the law although former prime minister Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor, who are currently facing charges over one of the biggest scandals to ever hit the country, were allowed to fly to Singapore to see their daughter give birth. The law is the law although Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who is also facing corruption charges, was allowed to travel to Munich to treat his back and neck pain.
The law is the law and this article does not intend to argue with that. Instead, it seeks an answer to a simple question: Where’s the noise? Where is the same volume of noise given to Timah and Sajat? Why is it that a brand of whisky and the question of whether a person is born a man or not take precedence over the life of a mother of nine children whose lives hang in the balance?
Following the footsteps of the Prophet?
On Oct 19, Muslims celebrated Maulidur Rasul as many believe the date coincided with the anniversary, in the Islamic calendar, of the birth of their most beloved prophet. Our new prime minister was quoted as saying the government would continue to follow the example of Prophet Muhammad in his “Malaysian Family” administration.
There is a famous story recorded in Sahih Muslim about a woman who approached the Prophet to confess, out of remorse, that she had committed fornication, the punishment for which was death. The Prophet turned away from her, dismissing her from the gathering.
The next day, she returned and once again publicly confessed her crime, saying she had become pregnant. The Prophet told her to return only after the birth of the child.
After she had given birth, the woman returned, this time bringing the child with her. The Prophet told her to suckle the child until it was weaned.
Were the Prophet to know what this mother of nine had done and that a court had sentenced her to death, how would he react?
Since there is so much noise regarding Timah and Sajat, especially from the Muslim community and from politicians claiming to champion the cause of Islam, where is the noise for fellow Muslim Hairun Jalmani?
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kt comments:
Over at FB, more than one matey wrote they want to see those guilty of causing UPNM Naval Cadet Officer Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain get their due deserves (and/or equal fate as the victim), meaning the death sentence for each.
I don't believe in the state killing in revenge for the victim, stemming from the biblical instructions in Exodus 21:23-25
Can such a draconian punishment bring back the dead? What if there drastic verdict was wrong?
I fell upon the words of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (Act 4, Scene 1) to appeal to the compassion and mercy of my mates:
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
Malaysia should abolish capital punishment and emerge as a compassionate nation in justice.
Just a few months ago everyone was demanding 500 yo Bully get out of Afghanistan, now today we see Telly-ban "justice".
ReplyDeleteSo Yes Indeed, Now Where is the Noise on Afghanistan? Not only Death Penalty but No Trial even, just shoot them dead and hang their bodies in public.
Everyone happy now?
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Taliban publicly display bodies of alleged kidnappers in Herat
Akhtar Mohammad Makoii
Sat 25 Sep 2021
Taliban authorities in the western Afghan city of Herat killed four alleged kidnappers and hung their bodies up in public to deter others, a local government official has said, in a sign of Afghanistan’s new rulers’ return to their harsh version of Islamic justice.
Graphic footage shows the dead bodies of at least four men with their clothes covered in blood hanging from cranes in the city’s main squares as people watch.
“Whoever kidnaps others, will end up like this,” is written in a note on the chest of the bodies.
Ziaulhaq Jalali, a Taliban-appointed district police chief in Herat, said Taliban members had rescued a father and son who had been abducted by four kidnappers after an exchange of gunfire. He said a Taliban fighter and a civilian were wounded by the kidnappers but “the four (alleged kidnappers) were killed in crossfire”.
The Taliban brought the bodies to four main squares of the city and asked people to gather around, people in the ancient city near the border with Iran said.
“I was talking with a customer when I saw Taliban bring two dead bodies on the back of a ranger vehicle,” Ahmadi, a mobile phone seller said. “Then they told the people that from now on this is what will happen to anyone who kidnaps people. Many started chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ as a crane hanged the body.”
“I was in a taxi and going towards the downtown when I saw the Taliban had used a crane to hang a dead body,” said another resident of the city.
“People were running to see it. I was watching it through the taxi’s back window. Then, when I arrived at the next square, I saw another man hanging from a crane … a body was hanging in square after square. I’m still in shock.”
The public hangings come a day after a senior Taliban official said executions and the amputation of hands for criminals they convict will resume.
Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, one of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan, said this week that the group will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.
“Everyone criticised us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi told the Associated Press. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Qur’an.”
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