Penang [Malaysia] police brand women

[panzerfaust]

Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Oz)

... Local media reported police went undercover at the club for a week before the raid. It triggered an outcry after newspapers carried photos of the women bound up with a long chain and marked with either a tick or an ''X' on their chest and forehead.

''The police branded the detained women as though they are cattle,'' opposition lawmaker Teresa Kok said. ''It is sickening that the police would employ such dehumanising tactics as a show of power and moral superiority over their detainees.''

...

Police have defended their action, saying the markings served as a way to identify the women. Penang police chief Ayub Yaakob said the situation was chaotic, with the suspects trying to escape.

He said police were forced to mark the women after some donned new clothes to try to blend in with other patrons of the club. He also said the women had wrecked many marriages and that police had received numerous complaints from wives.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/penang-police-brand-women-20110604-1fmcx.html

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Note that the branded women had not even been convicted of any crime.

Apparently none of the male customers were either arrested or branded.

I do see a correlation between this treatment of women and the fact in Malaysia only 0.8% of people 'do not practice any religion.' Even America has not yet reached the blessed state of 99.2% having an invisible friend to guide them on the path of righteousness. Perhaps that is why American police do not yet feel free to brand suspects.

[cosmicone]

1. This is just horrible ...

Shows how an Islamacized country rapidly goes downhill over a slipper slope.

Since the epic battle between Mahathir Mohammad and Anwar, the country was more and more radicalized with atrocities against the Chinese and Indian minorities. The vision of the late Tunku Abdur Rehman of a secular, progressive country has gone down the drain.

[Taverner]

2. I worry the Chinese Malays will face the same fate as the Chinese Indonesians

:scared:

[Stinky The Clown]

3. I can't figure this out. Were they actually branded - as in burned - or were they marked?

Story is unclear on this point. Were these women branded in the sense that something was burned into their flesh, or where they marked, say with a permanent marker, on their skin?

[petronius]

7. I'm reading it as a marker (ink) type of thing - not really seeing what's so horrible

about it, actually. :shrug:

As long as it wasn't a permanent mark and there was no physical or other abuse, it just sounds like an arrest...

[Odin2005]

4. The Christo-Fascists would LOVE to do that here.

[Sivafae]

5. picture

[LetTimmySmoke]

6. There's a reason the founders insisted on separation between church and state

Religion-ruled societies had been behaving like this for thousands of years.

[StarsInHerHair]

8. too true

[The Unawriter]

9. And the US hasn't?

"Separation of church and state" is the Great American Myth. It really boils down to the same shit in most countries on Earth.