A blog account from 6 March, by a young American woman who’s on a working holiday in Europe, describing German Christmas-time celebrations:

Every year, in the Obersalzburg area of Bavaria and in other parts of Austria and Hungary, they celebrate St. Nicholas’ Day a little differently than the rest of the world. You know how the German culture is about cautionary tales for children… Well instead of being told that Santa Claus will bring bad children lumps of coal, German children are told that if they’re bad, the Krampus monsters will administer corporal punishment or carry them off to the pits of hell.

Ever since the 90s AFRC employees at the Berchtesgaden and Chiemsee hotels have been going to Berchtesgaden for St. Nicholas’ Day to have the sin beaten out of them. In 2005, when those hotels closed, it became a tradition for Edelweiss employees. It was talked about so much that I had to experience this for myself.  I was in a car full of 5 girls headed down to Krampus on the 5th of December. We stopped in Chiemsee along the way to go to the Christkindlmarkt on Frauen Insel – one of the islands in Chiemsee where there is a convent. We watched the sunset from the ferry back to the car, then drove the last little bit to Berchtesgaden.

The Krampus parade kicking off the evening of abuse was earlier in the evening, before dark. Once we got to the main pedestrian street we saw people with black shoe polish all over their faces. The marks were from the Krampus to show that this individual had already been beaten. In theory, it should spare the individual from another beating, but the Krampus monsters are probably so drunk they don’t care.

Berchtesgaden’s fire department performs the role of the Krampus monsters, and come in a variety of costumes of either giant haystacks or animal skins and furs. Some wear enormous cow bells on ther backs, and the infantry wear smaller bells on their backs and shoulders. They drink before the event, they drink after the event, then they sleep until it begins again for the second day and drink again. They hand-make their birch switches. Some are braided for added discomfort. These switches and whips are a point of honor for these young men. When people try to grab them from their hands, the beating they are given is so much worse. Those who try to steal their whips from their hands are usually the drunkest people there, though (Alice and Tom from Alpine Adventures).

Maybe 20 of us from Edelweiss were there, standing on the sidewalk, which is about a meter higher than the pedestrian street, drinking our first cup of Glühwein mit Schüss (mulled wine with a shot) when the bells first came within ear shot and the Krampus were approaching en masse. I thought standing on higher ground would mean I was safe. I turned my camera on and started to take a video of St. Nicholas and all of the Krampus monsters marching up the street. The first one to get to me all of a sudden lashed out and whipped the back of my knee. It was shockingly painful! That’s when I knew this was anyone’s game. There wasn’t anywhere that was off-limits to them (except supposedly the face).

In the hours that followed, we broke off into smaller groups, drank more Glühwein, and encountered more and more of the smaller groups of Krampus. Just when you thought you were safe, you would hear the giant cow bells ringing and everyone would start running away. It was seriously terrifying. I got hit twice more. The bruises were raised welts and the discoloration lasted for at least a month afterward.

They left the center of town eventually and sat around near the fire house drinking more. We found them reposed like this when we went to try to find somewhere still serving food. After that, I guess they went back to their lair. We would have ended up going to the same bar to hang out with them, but we had to find a cab still running to take us all back up to our guesthouse.

To this day, whenever I hear bells clanging, my heart starts racing and the memories come flooding back.

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.

From the Wall Street Journal yesterday

Malaysian authorities said Wednesday that officials caned four Muslim men and, for the first time, three Muslim women this month after being found guilty of having sex out of wedlock.

The move to cane the women under the country’s Islamic Shariah laws has raised fresh concerns about the growing political and judicial influence of Islam in what traditionally has been one of the world’s more moderate Muslim nations.

The vibrant, resource-rich country came under intense international scrutiny last year after a Shariah court sentenced 32-year-old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno to be caned after she was caught drinking beer in a hotel bar. Many moderate Muslims and non-Muslim Malaysians saw that verdict as reflecting the growing reach of Islam in Malaysia over the past several years, although Prime Minister Najib Razak has said he won’t let Malaysia drift toward becoming an Islamist state. The caning of Ms. Kartika, who is a Muslim, still hasn’t been carried out despite her requests to the Islamic courts to get it over with.

Wednesday’s announcement that three Muslim women were caned on Feb. 9 for having illicit sex thus came as a shock to many Malaysians. “This was a big a surprise. We had no idea this was going to happen,” said Ragunath Kesavan, president of the Malaysian Bar Council. “We were always told Ms. Kartika would be the first.”

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein waited more than a week before announcing the punishment at a news conference following the government’s weekly cabinet meeting Wednesday… All seven were found guilty of illicit sex and sentenced by a Shariah court in the Kuala Lumpur area between December 2009 and January 2010.

“I hope this will not be misunderstood, so that it defiles the sanctity of Islam,” Mr. Hishammuddin said. “The punishment is to teach and give a chance to those who have fallen off the path to return and build a better life in the future.”

Two of the women and the four men were struck six times, while the other woman was struck four times. Mr. Hishammuddin said that a doctor was present at the canings, which took place in male and female prisons, and that the offenders weren’t tied. The women were seated while they were struck, and no injuries were reported.

The idea, the officials previously have said, is to humiliate rather than injure—unlike the canings administered to drug pushers and other violators of civil laws, which can sometimes leave deep scars. The offenders, Mr. Hishammuddin said, were then “advised on ways to repent and to get closer to Allah.”