Culture

Malaysia’s Homophobic Anti-Sodomy Law, Imposed by British Imperialists, Could Soon Crumble


 

Malaysia will hear a challenge to the country’s ban on gay sex as part of a lawsuit filed by a man who says he was wrongfully arrested.

The Muslim-majority country’s laws regarding homosexuality are complex, in part because of a two-track system that applies one set of Islamic laws and punishments to Muslims and another to the general population. This particular case dates back to 2018, when police raided a private home and arrested eleven people suspected of having intercourse.

Five of those men pleaded guilty in an Islamic court, and were forced to pay fines, endure caning, and suffer four to seven months of imprisonment. The official charge was “attempting intercourse against the order of nature.”

But one victim fought back, claiming that he was wrongfully arrested. He is suing the government on the grounds that because gay sex is already banned by Malaysian civil law, the Islamic court has no authority to impose punishment.

Now, Malaysia’s highest court has said that they will hear his challenge. If he’s victorious, it could prove a vital test case for dismantling the decades-old prohibition on homosexuality, which dates back to British occupation. Arguments are expected sometime this year.

“(If we win), the state law will be struck down and the criminal charges in the (Islamic) shariah court should be dropped,” his attorney told Reuters.

In Malaysia, “unnatural offenses,” as they’re known, carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison and physical abuse by the state. The law was created in the 1870s by the British, and has remained on the books ever since. It is modeled on a similar law imposed on India by British racist Lord Thomas Macaulay.

The law has been wielded for political purposes in the past. In 1998, reformer Anwar Ibrahim was arrested on sodomy charges and imprisoned for four years. Ibrahim maintained that the charges were false, and that he had been targeted by political enemies. Ultimately, a federal court ordered him released in 2004, but he was arrested again in 2008 and 2015 on similar charges. He was released for a third time in 2018.

That same year, two women were arrested and sentenced to a beating by a court in Terengganu for having sex with each other.

The possibility of overturning the law, known as Section 277, was hailed by civil rights groups. A coalition of groups in Malaysia known as the LGBTIQ+ Network released a statement of hope that this could bring about the end of a century and a half of homophobic oppression.

A survey by Pew in 2013 showed that only 9% of Malaysians felt that homosexuality should be accepted by society, with those over the age of 50 expressing slightly more tolerance than those under.


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