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1:The case of Michael Fay, the 18-year-old American sentenced to six strokes of the cane (in addition to a fine and imprisonment) in Singapore for vandalism has received such comprehensive media coverage that it hardly seems necessary for us to mention that Fay's sentence was reduced to four strokes after an appeal for clemency by President Clinton. The punishment was carried out on May 5th 1994.
My investigation for this report have the result that at least 21 states of the world permit Judicial Corporal Punishments in the years between 1995 and 1998. There are (in alphabetical order): Afghanistan, Angola, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Kyrgystan, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Quartar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates (VAR) and Yemen.
Far from arousing outraged disapprovals , that might have been expected, Michael Fay's caning was broadly welcomed in all its distasteful barbarity in the crime-plagued West. A call-in poll in Fay's caning was broadly welcomed in all its distasteful barbarity in the crime-plagued West. A call-in poll in Fay's home town of Dayton, Ohio, found residents backing the caning by nearly two-to-one. Typically, a report in The Daily Telegraph, 6.4.94 was headed "Americans want vandal to be flogged". Observing that Singapore is a virtually crime-free society, many columnists in Britain and U.S.A. supported the punishment, including a writer in The Sunday Times who favoured the indroduction of a traditionally British style of caning for male and female miscreants in this country. Letters to newspapers nearly all supported the caning of Fay.
In a letter to the London Evening Standard commenting on another case in Singapore. Justine Lewis of Clapham wrote: "I have little sympathy for the Singaporean man sentenced to 15 strokes of the cane and five years' imprisonment for his part in a gang rape... The woman he raped no doubt suffered, and is still suffering, the pain physically and mentally and will do so for the rest of her life. Perhaps now he will have some idea of what a heinous crime rape is and will think twice before he commits it again".
Readers of The Sun newspapers were asked in a telephone poll published on 21.4.94 whether they backed corporal punsihment for British criminals. 38.294 voted in favour; 829 against. A similar poll conducted by the ITV morning television programme The Time, The Place on 5.5.94 showed 62.600 in favour and 3.321 against: a 95 per cent majority supporting the introduction of judical caning in Great Britain!
And in Germany? Under the headline "Prügelstrafe - viele Deutsche dafür" ("Flogging - many German's for it") the BILD-Zeitung, German's greatest daily newspaper, reported in 1994, that more and more are in favour for reintroduction corporal punsihment. At the first time a german politician, the deputy Wolfgang Zöller, said, "was many people think": the flogging of drug-dealers.
Islamic justice had condemned hundreds of young women
to be flogged in the Gulf in the past years.
Examples of selected states:
QUARTAR
On a less savoury note The Daily Mail, 19.5.94 devoted two full pages to a special report on the flogging in Quartar of 30-year-old Gavin Sherrard-Smith from surrey for the alleged offence of selling alcohol, which he strenuously denies. The spread included a graphic halfpage illustration of "the grimm scene in the prison punishment cell" and an exclusive interview with Mr. Sharrard-Smith after he reveived 50 strokes of the cane. Lying face down on the floor, he was beaten across the entire back of his body through prison uniform.
The victim, who was one of 22 prisoners to be caned in Quatar's Central prison on that day, said: "The pain was unbelievable and the details of what happened will live with me for ever. At first the pain wasn't too much but after about 20 it really begins to hurt. It's agony, bloody agony and the last ten were extremely bad. It is a long stick and there is a fair amount of whiplash which stings. The pain became worse as they began to strike on the same places again and again".
IRAN
In 1994 another U.S.-citizen was whipped in Iran. The Daily Mail, 6.5.94 was headed "80 lashes for U.S. woman drunk in Iran" and reports, that a female has been publicly whipped in Teheran for drunken behaviour. Texan Mary Jones, 35, was sentenced to 80 lashes, fined 10.000 rials and ordered to be deported.
Jones entered Iran 11 years ago without proper identity documents and spent her night in parks and "special houses". "She confessed in court that her job was corrupting young Iranians", the judge said. Swiss diplomats, who look after U.S. interests in Iran, were not immediately avaiable for comment. Flogging has become a common punishment for drinking alcohol and some other offences in Iran under the penal code enacted after the 1979 Islamic revolution. But it was the first report in many years of a Westerner being whipped.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATS
In the United Arab Emirates, the victims, often girls and young women, are ordered to lie on a bench to be lashed, though sometimes their hands are shackled above their heads. As an Asian diplomat put it apologetically: "They must be restrained in case they run amok during the beatings".
For supposed immoral behaviour or theft, a Philippino, Sri Lankan or Indian maid in the Arab Gulf can expect up to 200 lashes. Islamic justice had condemned hundreds of young women to be flogged in the Gulf in the past years. Floggings are always administered by a man who leans over the girl to cane her in the presence of both male and female officers.
In the United Arab Emirates, the victims, often girls
and young women, are shackled
the hands obove their hands to be lashed.
SINGAPORE
Many newspaper carried photos taken in Singapore's Changi prison in 1994, showing a prison officer helpfully demonstrating, with the aid of a human dummy strapped over a trestle, how Fay would be caned on the bare buttocks with a four-foot long, halfinch thick rattan. The cane is applied with the entire force of a martial arts expert's body, and causes intolerable pain, bleeding and lifelong scarring.
MALAYSIA
Criminal law prescribes caning as an additional punishment to imprisonment for those convicted of some nonviolent crimes such as narcotics possession, criminal breach of trust, and alien smuggling. Judges routinely include caning in sentences of those convicted of such crimes as kidnaping, rape, and robbery. The caning, which is carried out with a 1/2-inch-thick wooden cane, commonly causes welts, and sometimes causes scarring. Even children can be caned. For example, in July 1998 a 15-year-old boy was sentenced to 10 strokes of the cane for a drug offense.
A description by Associated Press:
Aussie teens caned in K.L.
Two Australian teenaged girls were caned and deported recently in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. The two, both aged seventeen, pleaded guilty to possession of a small quantity of a controlled substance, marijuana. Both claimed ignorance of the law as their defense. Whilst the corporal punishment of adult females is not permitted in Malaysia, juveniles under age eighteen of both sexes may be awarded canings for certain offences at the discretion of courts. A lighter cane is used in these instances than the type of cane used with adult males. The illegal drug was discovered in the girls' hotel room by a maid who reported her find to the hotel manager. The police were called and the two were arrested upon their return to the hotel. They were charged with the possession and brought before a magistrate who accepted their guilty plea before sentencing them to be caned and then deported immediately. Each girl received eight strokes. Upon arrival at the Melbourne airport, one of the girls gave an account of their ordeal for Australian radio.
"We were taken to a police station and escorted by three policewomen into some kind of office. There were metal filing cabinets and a chair in the middle of the floor. A fourth policewoman was waiting there with a cane. The cane was quite thin like at school but a bit longer. We were pretty scared. The policewoman with the cane smiled at us and asked which one of us wanted to be first. I volunteered. I just wanted it to be over with. I was told to take off my dress and pantyhose and bend over the chair. While I was doing this she was taking practice swings with the cane. One of the other policewomen came over and held my wrists while I was bent over. The caning started and I screamed blue bloody murder. I didn't think anything could hurt that much."
A doctor who examined both girls two days after the canings stated that visible raised weals and abrasions consistent with severe caning were present on the buttocks and legs of both girls. The parents appealed to the Australian government, however a government spokesperson said that no action was planned. A source in Kuala Lumpur stated that such punishment was expected in Malaysia and that the girls had been treated leniently. A local youth had recently received twelve strokes for the same offence, said the source.
SAUDI ARABIA
Punishment by flogging is enforced in Saudi Arabia for a variety of offences. Flogging is used for sexual offences and can also be used discretionally by judges as a substitute or addition to other punishments.
Flogging is a regular and widespread practice throughout the Kingdom and is applied even to children. For example, Nasir al-Shibani and Muhammad Majed al-Shibani, both secondary school students, were respectively sentenced to 210 and 150 lashes. They were also sentenced to three and two months imprisonment, respectively. The sentences were passed in March 1996 by a court in Ta'if which convicted the two children on charges of assault against a teacher at their school, al-Thaqeef School in Ta'if. Some of the lashes were apparently carried out in front of the pupils and teachers of the school.
The number of lashes handed down by courts in each case is not clearly prescribed by law and can range from dozens to thousands of lashes. For example, Muhammad 'Ali al-Sayyid, an Egyptian national convicted of robbery in 1990, was sentenced to 4,000 lashes in addition to imprisonment.
A example: a report from Weekly World News:
Nov. 25th 1997
"I was caned in Saudi Arabia"
Westerners were horrified when English (!) nurse Lucille McLauchlan was recently sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia. But Lucille would not be the first Western woman to be publically flogged in the Moslem country. Danielle Pantinella of East Orange, New Jersey went through the same painful and demeaning experience when she received a dose of Islamic "justice" there in 1989. Here, exclusively for Weekly World News readers is Danielle's chilling (!) account of her horrific ordeal.
"For the love of Allah please stop! Please don't whip me again!" Tears streaming down my cheeks, my voice quaking in craven terror, I let out that pitiful cry as the Saudi guard raised the bamboo whip-cane high above his head and prepared to bring it down on my back for the 50th time. My body ached from the strokes that had bitten into my bare flesh and I was woozy from the pain. But when I heard the jeering roar of approval, I knew my captors would show no mercy.
As I heard the the awful sound of the cane swishing through the air once again, I passed out. And in that moment of darkness my mind drifted back to the day when the nightmare had begun.
At the time I was a naive 18 year old college student visiting Saudi Arabia. I was having a ball, but was running low on cash. I wandered into a store in the capital, Riyadh where I made the biggest mistake of life. I tried to sneak off with a bag of potato chips I hadn't paid for and the owner promptly spotted me. He called the police and the next thing I knew I was under arrest. I was thrown in a jail cell in the police station. Later on a judge sentenced me to 75 strokes of the cane for shoplifting.
The next morning I was loaded into a truck with six guards, who drove me to the market square.
To my horror, they ordered me to unbutton the back of my prison shift and bend over the back of a chair they had brought along. Two guards held my hands to keep me in position. Adding to my humiliation, hundreds of shoppers gathered around to gawk.
I looked back over my shoulder - and saw that one of the other guards had raised a long thin bamboo cane and was about to bring it down. I closed my eyes and braced myself.
There was a loud swishing sound and I felt a sharp, stinging pain across my butt, as if I had been stabbed with a knife. I winced and tears began to roll down my cheeks, but I was determined I wouldn't give the onlookers the satisfaction of hearing me scream.
One after another, the strokes whipped down across my back, thighs and buttocks in a crisscrossing pattern. And every time the cane cut into me, the crowd shouted in delight. I heard one woman cry out, "Give the infidel what she deserves!"
Finally, I couldn't hold it back. I began to howl in agony and begged for mercy - then I collapsed into unconciousness.
When I came to hours later, I was back in my bunk in the jail cell. The backs of my thighs, my bottom and my lower back were striped with dozens of painfully swollen welts. I was released and you can bet I hopped on the first plane back to the U.S.!
Another example: a report from Associated Press:
May 9, 1999
"Filipinas sentenced in Saudi Arabia for
performing abortions"
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Two
Filipinas convicted of performing abortions in Saudi Arabia have
been sentenced to two years in prison and 700 lashes each,
Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper reported Sunday.
The women, who were not identified, were convicted Saturday by a
court in this Red Sea port city, the newspaper said. They will be
deported after they complete their sentences, the paper said,
quoting judge Sheik Hussein al-Hikmi.
The Filipinas, in their 30s, had been performing abortions in
their home for three years and were charging $930, the newspaper
said.
Last month, a Lebanese physician convicted of performing
abortions was sentenced to life in prison.
Abortion is banned in this conservative Islamic kingdom except
under extraordinary circumstances, such as when the mother's life
is at risk."
