A Malaysian court fined 12 Muslims yesterday and sentenced one of them to a week in prison for illegally protesting the construction of a Hindu temple and parading a severed cow’s head.
The protest last August stoked tensions among Malaysia’s three main ethnic groups — the Malay Muslim majority and Chinese and Indian minorities, most of them Buddhists, Christians or Hindus who have complained that their religious rights are often sidelined in favor of Islam.
The 12 men were among scores of Muslims who marched with a bloodied cow’s head from a mosque to the central Selangor state chief minister’s office on Aug. 28 last year to denounce the state government’s plan to build a Hindu temple in their largely Muslim neighborhood.
OFFENSIVE BEHAVIOR
Some of the protesters also stomped and spat on the head and made fiery speeches that deeply offended Hindus. The cow is the most sacred animal in Hinduism.
All 12 pleaded guilty in a Selangor district court yesterday to a charge of illegal assembly and were fined 1,000 ringgit (US$320) each, defense lawyer Afifuddin Hafifi said. They faced up to a year in prison and a fine for the charge.
SEDITION
Two of them who brought and stepped on the cow’s head also pleaded guilty to sedition.
Both were fined an additional 3,000 ringgit, and one was sentenced to a week in prison, Afifuddin said.
Sedition, defined as promoting hostility between races, is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine.
The conflict highlighted frustrations among minorities about strict government guidelines that restrict the number of non-Muslim places of worship, partly based on whether enough non-Muslims live where a church or temple is to be built.
Authorities in Selangor eventually found a new site to build the controversial temple.
A. Vaithilingam, a Malaysian Hindu religious leader, raised concerns that the penalties imposed by the court yesterday might appear inadequate to some Hindus.
“The sentences seem to be very light after the huge commotion and the insult,” he said. The men’s actions “stirred up the emotions throughout the country. This could have caused a riot.”
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
RSS