Felix the Cat
12-22-2005, 02:45 PM
Tsunami was 'God's revenge' on sinful women (http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=31&si=1531045&issue_id=13448)
DR Marluddin Jalil, a Sharia judge who has ordered the punishment of women for not wearing headscarves, was uncompromising: "The tsunami was because of the sins of the people of Aceh."
Thundering into a microphone at a gathering of wives, he made clear where he felt the fault lay: "The Holy Koran says that if women are good, then a country is good."
A year after the disaster, which many believe was a divine punishment, emboldened Islamic hardliners in Indonesia such as Dr Jalil are doing their best to eradicate sin - and women are their prime targets.
With reconstruction slow, irrational fears of a second tsunami high, and nearly 500,000 still homeless along 500 miles of coastline, the message falls on fertile ground. A Sharia police force modelled on Saudi moral enforcers enthusiastically seeks out female wrong doers for public humiliation.
The Wilayatul Hisbah, which loosely translates as "Control Team", has arrested women, lopped off their hair, and paraded them in tears through the streets while broadcasting their sins over a megaphone.
More than 100 gamblers and drinkers - men and women - have been caned in public and some clerics are calling for thieves' hands to be amputated.
The Islamic law, introduced without popular enthusiasm in 2002, has been implemented rigorously since the tsunami.
Fatimah Syam of Indonesian Women for Legal Justice knows of 20 women and girls who have fallen foul of it.
"They seek out women without headscarves or unmarried girls meeting boys in private places. I've seen the police laughing and the girls in tears."
The Sharia police say the tsunami happened because women ignored religion. We never heard of this parading before the tsunami."
DR Marluddin Jalil, a Sharia judge who has ordered the punishment of women for not wearing headscarves, was uncompromising: "The tsunami was because of the sins of the people of Aceh."
Thundering into a microphone at a gathering of wives, he made clear where he felt the fault lay: "The Holy Koran says that if women are good, then a country is good."
A year after the disaster, which many believe was a divine punishment, emboldened Islamic hardliners in Indonesia such as Dr Jalil are doing their best to eradicate sin - and women are their prime targets.
With reconstruction slow, irrational fears of a second tsunami high, and nearly 500,000 still homeless along 500 miles of coastline, the message falls on fertile ground. A Sharia police force modelled on Saudi moral enforcers enthusiastically seeks out female wrong doers for public humiliation.
The Wilayatul Hisbah, which loosely translates as "Control Team", has arrested women, lopped off their hair, and paraded them in tears through the streets while broadcasting their sins over a megaphone.
More than 100 gamblers and drinkers - men and women - have been caned in public and some clerics are calling for thieves' hands to be amputated.
The Islamic law, introduced without popular enthusiasm in 2002, has been implemented rigorously since the tsunami.
Fatimah Syam of Indonesian Women for Legal Justice knows of 20 women and girls who have fallen foul of it.
"They seek out women without headscarves or unmarried girls meeting boys in private places. I've seen the police laughing and the girls in tears."
The Sharia police say the tsunami happened because women ignored religion. We never heard of this parading before the tsunami."