| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Imam arrested after flogged woman dies in Bangladesh |
| 2010-12-20 |
| A MUSLIM cleric has been arrested in Bangladesh following the death of a woman who was publicly caned for adultery, police have said. Sufia Begum, thought to have been in her forties, was accused of having an affair with her 36-year-old stepson and was sentenced to 40 lashes last month by an Islamist court that included the imam of the local mosque, Afsar Ali. “She became seriously ill and was hospitalised after the caning, and she died last week,” Azizul Haque Sarker, a police chief, said. The Bangladesh High Court outlawed punishments handed down by religious edict, or fatwa, in July, but Begum’s death, in the Rajshahi district of northwestern Bangladesh, suggests that such brutal punishments are still handed down in religiously conservative rural areas of the country. The victim’s brother, Taimur Rahman, said that her kidneys had been damaged during the beating, reportedly undertaken by a local woman. She died while her family was struggling to raise money to have her treated in the capital Dhaka. Rights activists have warned of a creeping tide of Sharia in Bangladesh. In one of the most notorious cases, a 16-year-old girl who was raped was given 101 lashes in January for conceiving during the assault. The girl’s father was also fined and was told that the family would be branded outcasts from their village if he did not pay. The 20-year-old rapist was pardoned. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has vowed to eradicate Islamic militancy, has warned of “zero tolerance” for Sharia punishments. |
| Posted by:tipper |