A Gulf Times report from Qatar on 2 July 2006:

A 32-year-old Filipina housemaid was found guilty on Thursday of illicit relations and sentenced to 100 lashes and immediate deportation. While denying the charge of illicit relations, she admitted that she was the mother of a three-month-old baby.

According to her sponsor, he reported the matter to the police after he found a baby in her room last April. “She told me that the baby belonged to another Filipina maid who left Doha a few days earlier.”…

However, the maid told the police that she allowed her boyfriend into the house “many times”. She said the “father” of the child is now in the Philippines waiting for her to join him so that they can get married.

(From this free punishment gallery)

From BOPA, the Botswanan news agency on 19 Feb:

Now, a new disorder is taking route in the once envied district of Bakgatla-ba-ga-Kgafela. A series of beatings of innocent people… have taken root. According to the police, four cases of innocent beatings have been reported to them even though the victims are not willing to pursue the cases further…

Not even women are spared the rod. The police have confirmed that a woman was recently flogged on her bare buttocks by Madisakgosi and like the men folks, is not willing to go the court route.

Rewind all these to a public humiliation of a drama group that scooped number one through their play only for the actors to be lashed for portraying bogwera and bojale in an edutainment piece.

Kgosi Sekai Linchwe has gone on record stating that the flogging will continue for some time to come. He said bogosi has taken a stand to whip anyone, regardless of age, who commits any minor offence in the village.

From The Frontier Post on 19 February:

Officials and human right activists in western Ghor province have strongly condemned the public flogging of two women as an unlawful and immoral act. Governor’s office spokesman Abdul Hai Khatibi said the two women who were forcibly married in Dolina district ran away from their husbands’ houses a month back.

Police arrested the two in Chasht district of neighboring Herat province while wearing men’s dresses. The women were then handed over to their respective families by the police, said the gubernatorial spokesman.

In light of a decree issued by local clerics, Khatibi said, the two women were subjected to 45 lashes each in public. “This punishment was allowed by former local commanders and scholars,” he said. The Dolina district is a haven of illegal armed groups, who impose such brutal and unethical verdicts on people, he added…

Deputy Dolina police chief 1st corporal Jahan Shah said the two women were punished by a former jihadi commander named Fazl Ahad… This reporter could not reach Fazl Ahad for his comments. Acting high court chief in Ghor Attaullah Tamkin said any decision made outside the court was illegal. He said those responsible for the flogging were criminals and should be arrested and tried.

A follow-up to a story reported here recently appeared online by various newspapers:

Regretting their actions, the first Malaysian women to be caned for extramarital affairs say that their penalty would help fight illicit behaviour in the Muslim-majority country. ”I deeply regret my actions,” one of the women, 17, told the New Straits Times on Friday, February 19.

The three women were given four to six lashes last week for having extramarital affairs.

“On the day I was caned, I was scared,” said one of the women, a 25-year-old who went by the name of “Ayu”. “But, at the same time, I knew I deserved it and was willing to take the punishment.”

The three women, aged between 17 and 25, said they were clothed and were seated when the sentence was carried out. Each stroke of the cane was administered at one-minute intervals using a thin rattan cane. Malaysia says the punishment is supposed to be symbolic and a deterrent rather than aimed at causing pain.

“Ayu” has a one-year-old daughter with her boyfriend, while the other two women also gave birth out of wedlock. The three women said they turned themselves in to religious authorities after being wracked by guilt over having pre-marital affairs. ”Those out there who are having sex before marriage should really consider the consequences and not only think about momentary pleasure,” she told the Times…

“The sentencing has proven that caning is not unjust, inhumane or causes injuries,” Mohd Isa Abdul Ralip, the president of the Association of Shari`ah Lawyers, said in a press statement cited by The Malaysian Insider. Advocacy groups have criticized the caning as a proof on what they describe as “Islamization” of the country.

“The public and world community no longer needs to fear caning as a punishment under the Shari`ah because it is not cruel but instead educates the offenders,” Mohd Isa responded to the criticism. “It also provides awareness and teaches the offenders to repent and not repeat the acts.”

“This is concrete proof that the punishment went well and has been accepted,” said Fadhilina Sidek, vice-president of the Islamic Youth Movement (Abim).

From Indo-Asian News and reported elsewhere, an update on the case previously reported here of the young woman facing flogging in Malaysia:

Kuala Lumpur, Feb 17 : The sultan and the regent of Malaysia’s Pahang state will grant an audience to a part-time model who has expressed a wish to meet them before being caned for drinking in public. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno will undergo her caning sentence after her audience with them, the state’s Religious Department director Abdul Manan Abdul Rahman said.

Kartika made international headlines last year when she insisted on being caned as part of punishment for drinking alcohol in public. Caning, or being thrashed by a rote, is a sentence usually reserved for men in Muslim-majority Malaysia where drinking in public for Muslims is an offence.

The official said Kartika had expressed the wish to meet the regent or the sultan and she could meet both. The date of her punishment is yet to be decided.

After media uproar at home and human rights bodies’ appeals, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had asked that the punishment be deferred. Kartika, then 33, had refused to file an appeal.

On July 20 last year, Kartika was fined and ordered to be caned six times by the Kuantan Syariah High Court after she pleaded guilty to consuming alcohol in public.