Malaysian Woman to be Caned for Drinking Beer in Hotel Lobby

I hope the Malaysian government appreciates how much bad international press this caneing will bring. The Wall Street Journal comments:

The Muslims of Southeast Asia have long distinguished themselves by the practice of a tolerant form of Islam. The case of a Malaysian Muslim woman sentenced by an Islamic court to six lashes of the cane for drinking beer calls that reputation into question.

Under Malaysian law, all ethnic Malays are considered Muslims and are bound by Islamic law, which outlaws alcohol consumption. The defendant in this case, Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, pleaded guilty, paid a fine and asked to be lashed in public. The court declined. The 32-year-old mother of two will be caned in jail in the coming days.

This is no trivial punishment. "At the end of the caning, those who receive more than three strokes will be in a state of shock," a Singaporean director of prisons explained in a 1974 interview. "Many will collapse." No wonder Malaysian civil courts outlaw caning as a punishment for women.

Nor are judges in Islamic courts bound to mandatory sentences in cases like Ms. Kartika's, because they are expected to exercise good judgment and a sense of proportion. Instead, the judge chose the most severe punishment for a first-time offender, possibly to send a message at the start of Ramadan. He could have issued a fine or a short jail sentence.

So far, no major political party in Malaysia has questioned Ms. Kartika's punishment. In apostasy cases over the past few years, Malaysia's civil courts are also voluntarily ceding jurisdiction to their Shariah counterparts.

Asia's majority-Muslim democracies have to come to grips with how to manage a conservative Islamic fringe that cheers decisions like Ms. Kartika's. Those democracies should think carefully about what appeasing that fringe is likely to do to their traditions of tolerance, not to mention their aspirations for a freer future.