Islam recognizes capital punishment: Scholar
Islam recognizes capital punishment: Scholar
JAKARTA (JP): Islam recognizes capital punishment as a means of upholding justice and protecting the rights of the people, one of Indonesia's foremost Islamic scholar says.
Ali Yafie, a professor at the Institute of Koranic Science, said capital punishment is an acceptable punishment in Islam for certain crimes, murder in particular.
Yafie also explained that the religion recognizes kisas, or equal justice, which permits the heirs of a murder victim to ask the court to take the life of the murderer.
Similarly, a person who, during an assault, loses a part of his body, a hand for example, could ask the court to take one of the assailant's hands, Yafie told the Antara news agency.
Islamic criminal law allows for the court to mete out punishment equal to the crime committed, he explained.
His comment came amidst a renewed debate on capital punishment following this week's execution of a former army sergeant major in Palu, Central Sulawesi, who was convicted for a quadruple murder in 1985.
Following the execution of Kacong Laranu, human rights advocates renewed their demand to abolish capital punishment, the maximum penalty for murder, drug trafficking and subversion.
Malaysian
A Malaysian who was convicted of drug trafficking in 1986, Steven Chan, was also executed in Jakarta on Jan. 13 but the authorities managed to conceal the news from the press until last week. Steven's relatives in Malaysia, however, were informed.
The anti-capital punishment lobby is arguing that the death sentence is cruel, inhuman and vindictive and goes against the principle that court punishment is meant to rehabilitate.
Government officials defended capital punishment as an effective crime deterrence and stressed that the human rights of the victim are considered paramount to the rights of the criminal.
Yafie said the principle of kisas in murder cases is found in verse 178 of Surat Albaqoroh in the Koran. The principle is also mentioned in relation to assault with bodily harm in verse 45 of Surat Al Maidah.
Further in verse 33 of Surat Al-Isra, it is stipulated that the right to demand for capital punishment in murder cases lies in the hands of the victim's heirs, he said.
But Islamic law stipulates strongly that the court must prove that the crime has unequivocally been committed.
Yafie said in the case of murder, the court needs at least two eyewitnesses to the crime.
In the case of assault with bodily harm, although the victim has the right not to press charges, he added, the state should still pursue the case if it is in the interest of the general public. In such a case, the court will decide on the proper punishment.
He also said that Islamic law recognizes the right of all crime victims, or their heirs, to waive their claim to kisas and settle for compensation instead.
Asked for his own personal opinion on capital punishment, Yafie responded: "Why not. Even the United States has it."
People who suggest that capital punishment is cruel and inhuman are missing the point that the act of murder was itself inhuman.
He recognized, however, that Indonesia's court procedures have been slow and that this had allowed people on death row to win sympathy. "I think we still need to improve the way the court works."
Deplore
Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization, issued a statement yesterday deploring the two executions that recently took place in Indonesia. It added that it feared for the fate of the many others on death row, including political prisoners.
"Fears for prisoners on death row in Indonesia have been greatly heightened by the news that two executions have taken place in the country since the beginning of 1995," Amnesty said in a statement quoted by Reuters.
Amnesty said Indonesia had executed at least 30 people since 1985, 27 of them political prisoners. Six men accused of having communist or subversive links in the 1960s and dozens of other criminals are presently on death row. (emb)