Malaysia's Penal Code Section 377 states that “whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal” provides for imprisonment of up to 20 years, and fine or whipping. Section 377A provides for a male person to receive up to two years in prison for any act of 'gross indecency with another male person.'
The following is an extract of a report "Man fails in bid to legalise sodomy" published by The Star (Malaysia) on January 19, 2010. Click on the link below to read the article in full.
A Kuala Lumpur City Hall worker convicted of 22 counts of sodomy wants the Court of Appeal to declare as unconstitutional the provision that criminalised the act.
[Abdul Rahim Abdul Rahaman had said the acts were consensual, according to an AFP report.]
Abdul Rahim Abdul Rahaman contended that it was biased against the male gender.
The submission was made by Abdul Rahim’s counsel Fahri Azzat in his appeal to set aside the 60-year jail term and 22 strokes of rotan meted out to him by the Shah Alam Sessions Court in 2007.
However, Abdul Rahim — a HIV patient — failed to convince Justices Datuk Suriyadi Halim Omar, Datuk Hasan Lah and Datuk Ahmad Maarop who dismissed his appeal and upheld his sentence.
Fahri argued that Sections 377A and 377B of the Penal Code which make committing carnal intercourse against the order of nature a crime infringed Article 8 (1) and (2) of the Federal Consti-tution, which states that all persons should be treated equally and prohibits discrimination against citizens.
He said a scrutiny of Section 377B clearly showed that the provision only applied to males because it referred to a person introducing his male organ into the anus or mouth of another person.
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Reader's Comments
but the 60 year jail is too long for a discretion of a Judge to impose, and I do agree, to certain extent for the accused to be imprisoned on thegrounds of having sex with a minor, and that could be mitigated to a 3 year term imprisonment with 22 strokes of rotan, that is justified. i am of the opinion that the judgment against the accused is purely prejudicial in weight.
If Mr. Rahim has doomed this young man to a lifetime of antiretrovirals and opportunistic infections, I'd say he's got off lightly.
We all should have the right to form sexual relationships with whomsoever wishes to form those relationships with us. However, with this right should come the responsibility to protect the young, the vulnerable and the confused from destroying their lives.
If people don't responsibly exercise their rights, it gives excuses for lawmakers to take them away. I don't feel Mr. Rahim's appeal champions the equality cause as much as us queers would like it to - in fact, it makes gay people look rather predatory and self-interested, and plays perfectly into the hands of the bigots who continue to operate the machinery of government.
The guy was screwing a *fourteen* year old *child*.
Whatever Abdul might claim to AFP, you can't have consensual sex with a kid.
It makes it much harder for us to fight for equality when there are guy out there engaging in such behaviour. It will only justify those laws to the conservative types.
THAT'S the point.
But the sentencing seems way over the top, though we're not given much detail to know what it's based on. The Star newspaper article that is linked, actually says the boy was 15, not 14. The age of consent in Malaysia for males and females is said to be 16 (via google). What would a straight guy normally get sentenced to for having a sexual relationship with a 15 (or 14) year old girl in Malaysia? Surely that's the comparison to look at.
The maximum sentence for unnatural sex under 377 is supposed to be 20 years. Here they gave the guy 60 years, effectively the rest of his life in prison, presumably punishing the guy for different counts separately. As for the caning, if this is the same method as in Singapore, you're talking serious and prolonged torture at 22 strokes.
As for the sexist nature of the section that the lawyer was getting at as being unconstitutional: if you're straight and your girlfriend gives you a blow job, you can get 20 years. She doesn't commit an offence at all. If you've had 3 blow jobs from her you could get 60 years. She gets nothing. Same if the bj (or bottom in anal) is from a guy. It looks like potentially a blackmailer's charter, except there are generally no prosecutions of consenting adults in private from what I've been told.
We all know they have weird and sick laws.
What are you basing that conclusion on? Surely Islamic law distinguishes between statutory rape and homosexuality... Sharia law certainly does.
The guy was charged under the civil penal code s.377, (which applies to everyone, not just muslims, who are only 60% of the population), not under sharia (Islamic) law. Nor does he appear to have been charged under under-age provisions in the code so far as we can tell from the limited info in the article. The penal code is based on the same one you get in India, Singapore etc. . India and Singapore have made some recent reforms to their version of this section.
Maybe Aput can make an appearance here and provide more info.
Nobody in the US would come to the aid of this guy.
I do not know the legal code in Malaysia, but it seems valid to punish this creep.
The question is not whether he should be punished, (of course he should), or whether he's a creep (irrelevant), or whether you can speak for the entire legal profession of the United States not wanting to defend unpopular defendants; but rather whether the punishment is proportionate to the offence and in line with similar heterosexual cases (see post 16); and if punishment involves prolonged torture there are also international covenants to consider. We don't really have enough info from the article to know.
5 March 2008
Kuala Lumpur
A general worker and father of five was sentenced to 45 years’ jail and 15 strokes of the cane for sodomizing and raping his underaged daughter. His children have been handed over to the Welfare Department.
The daughter was first sodomized in their Sentul flat toilet on 18 July 2003 when she was 13 years old.
The judge gave 15 years of jail time for each of the two sodomy charges and a rape charge. The father was also given five strokes of the cane for each of the charges. The jail terms are to run concurrently commencing from the date of his arrest on 4 March 2004.
http://malaysiacrimewatch.lokety.com/father-jailed-45-years-for-raping-daughter/
The heterosexual case - father raping a minor daughter, 15 years per charge + 15 rotan stroke
This homosexual case - hiv+ man sodomizing a minor boy, 22 counts of sodomy charges, shouldn't he get 330 years? Instead he got 60 years and 22 rotan strokes...
I think he got a hell of a bargain for just getting 60 years and 22 rotan strokes! His lawyer should lose his/her license for using this case to challenge the constitution...
as a Gay Dad and i find it appalling that anyone would use this case to justify any type of sexually activity that involves a 14 year old
its dregs like this that confuse people about gay values and bring down the brand
gay activists should walk away from this guy and draw a fine line between real human rights abuses and creepy criminals
Anytime someone is charged with Penal Code 377A and B (aka sodomy), there are serious implications for all of us. This means the Malaysian constitution makes no distinction between adults engaging in consensual anal and/or oral sex and non-consenting adults engaging in the same.
As it stands, if the government can prove that a Malaysian has engaged in anal and/or oral sex, the person can be charged with the sodomy law. The law does not recognise "consent".
The defense lawyer tried his luck with the "consensual" argument but this was a stupid move. The boy was underaged. And even if the boy did give his consent, a minor is a minor.
But the defense lawyer is still right that Penal Codes 377A and B are still unconstitutional and must be done away with.
And I find the judge's statements worrying. Yes, the government must step in when it's an obvious crime -- like rape, incest, domestic violence, sexual harassment or discrimination because of one's gender or sexuality. But it should leave consenting adults alone. There's a big difference between someone who wants it and someone who doesn't want it but was forced to.
And to those of you who left comments pointing out the fact that he's HIV+ and implying that he's some kind of monster for having the condition and that he somehow deserved the punishment because of it, shame on you guys!
It's like the Anwar thing all over again when they said he committed sodomy in a building that hadn't even been built yet -- the prosecution, in its zeal to punish sodomy, can't even bother to get the facts right.
And THIS statement, “Are you saying that homosexuals among consenting adults is legal? In other words, what happens in the bedroom is none of the Government’s business?” -- I agree with #30. That's very troubling to consenting adults irrespective of sexual orientation.
I would answer a resounding "YES!" to both of the judge's questions.
This must be one of the worse attempts at a test case, all of its publicity will only sour relations as many will peceive homosexuals as peadaphiles who spread HIV.
I do hope Malaysia and other countries decriminalise homosexuality although I know this may take some time.
I say this cause as a 23 yr old this happened to me in the Army. A cook tried to put a move on me. Simply touched my bottom, if that. In mentioning to my roommate in a casual, humorous way, he said that it happened to him. Next thing I know, we were both testifying before his commander and a horde of others. I think he might've been tossed out of the Army as allegedly "they" stated this had happened off base too.
I still feel bad about this as I was young and INNOCENT for sure.
We don't know what really happened? Was the kid, nearly an adult, a "pro" who picked this guy up? Yeah, I understand about the age of consent, but there are some teens out there more hardened than some older men!
My 2nd story: there was a man in my neighborhood that many of the kids went to for sex. A bj and some bucks. Truly a pedophile I thought. Then I found out: this guy was in a wheel chair, wasn't easy for him to get out, the "kids" he was allegedly "abusing" were from 12 to 20-something, they were "using" his apt., making him pay, and basically he was in more danger from these young "gangsters" than he was. He got a ridiculous # of years in jail.
I say these kinds of situations need to go to a "gay" judge -- I know, I know, never happen -- so he or she can rightfully ascertain what REALLY HAPPENED.
Remember: there were people who were quick to burn us at the stake ("faggots" comes from, if my history serves me right, burning logs or stakes), send us to prison (not just jail), beat us, stone us, etc., so why should we be so quick to judge another human withOUT knowing the WHOLE story (and no, I do NOT condone molesting young children of any age.)
However, I do encourage tolerance of other human beings and BEATINGS and incredible LENGHTHY out-of-proportion PRISON SENTENCES are medieval abortions of justice in this day n' age.
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