KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will not repeal its laws against sodomy as the act is not tolerated in the country, says Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
The prime minister, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said sodomy goes against the teachings of Islam.
“We are a Muslim nation, and we do not tolerate sodomy. The rest of the world may tolerate it, but we cannot. That is against our religion,” he said.
Dr Mahathir’s remarks comes on the heels of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s statement earlier this month, in which the PKR president-elect had labeled anti-sodomy laws as “archaic and unjust”, as seen in the two charges that landed him behind bars.
Anwar had said that the law was a legacy of British colonialists and that is must be amended to ensure justice.
Anwar was in 1999 and 2000 jailed for corruption and sodomy. The convictions were later overturned. He also served a five-year jail term over sodomy since February 2015 until he was given a royal pardon in May.
Meanwhile, Dr Mahathir, in the same interview, also hit out at the way radical Islam is commonly described in the West.
“In Malaysia, we believe that what we practice is Islamic fundamentalism. If you go according to the teachings of Islam, you will be able to set up a good society, a good government. You will not be oppressive,” he said.
Dr Mahathir said what the West labeled Islamist fundamentalism is actually “a deviation from the teachings of Islam.”
“It’s not Islam at all. We have some people [in Malaysia] who are attracted to these deviations, but we have been able to argue against them. And by and large, the people support us,” he said.
The prime minister cited the recent caning of a lesbian couple in Terengganu, as an example.
“It’s not a moderate position, It’s an Islamic position. I mean, in Islam there is tolerance. We have to be merciful and compassionate. There are other forms of punishment. It’s not necessary to cane these people, so we objected to that. It gives a very bad impression of Islam.”
The two women, he said, should have had to undergo counseling, not caning.
Earlier this month, Dr Mahathir, responding to outrage over the caning, had stressed that the Cabinet was of the view that the punishment meted out by the state Shariah Court on the two women had tarnished the religion.
He had urged for consideration for lighter sentences to be given in future to prevent a repeat of the case.
This, he said, was important to show that Islam is not a ruthless religion that dishes out sentences that humiliate people.