Malaysia Islamist party pushes for sharia penalties

By Niluksi Koswanage

KAMPUNG PULAU MELAKA, Malaysia (Reuters) - A leader of Malaysia's Islamist party, which made surprising gains in March elections, wants its secular allies to apply strict sharia law, which include amputations and stonings for Muslims.

The hardline Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) has enacted such laws in its Kelantan stronghold to punish rapists and adulterers with stoning to death, while thieves would lose their limbs.

However, the country's Federal government has barred PAS from enforcing the laws.

PAS and other opposition parties wrested control of five of Malaysia's 13 states in the March election as voters punished the ruling coalition for concerns ranging from rising crime to racial tensions.

But analysts have said it would be tough for PAS to broaden its appeal due to its advocacy of the punishments called for by strict Muslim religious law, known as sharia or hudud, which scare off non-Muslims who see the party as a fundamentalist clique.

"Islam is a moderate, soft religion," PAS spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat told Reuters late last week in the northeastern state of Kelantan, the party's stronghold for the past 18 years.

"We took small steps to introduce Islam as a way of life in Kelantan. We would like to do the same in the other states that have fallen to the opposition."

Half of Malaysia's 26 million people are ethnic Malays, who by definition are Muslims. Ethnic Chinese and Indians, the largest two minority groups, are either Hindus, Buddhists or Christians.