Novel Punishment For Saudi Drug User.
There is an interesting report from Reuters today about a novel and beneficial punishment meted out by a court in Saudi Arabia.The Syariah judge there has ordered a drug user to spend six months memorizing the Qur'an! However there is a catch to it. In the event that our apprehended drug addict does not commit to memory or is unable to accurately recite the verses in the holy book, off he goes as a guest of the government to prison for a year!
I think that this is a good example for our Syariah courts to follow. Keeping in mind that many of our drug addicts are Muslim, it will serve the dual purpose of educating them on the recitation of Qur'anic verses as well as giving them time to reflect on their wrongdoing and the dangerous path they have thus far trod. It essentially helps the drug users in contemplating their future with the powerful aid of God and if they should be genuinely remorseful and show due diligence in their religious task, they would basically be giving themselves a second chance in making it in the real world. If all else fails they would still have to serve time as elsewhere.
What do you think? Should we just keep dumping our addicts into Pusat Serenti as we do now? These rehab centres have not proved to be of much use at all and the relapse rate on being released from them is disappointing and frightening to say the least. Is there a place for a Saudi-style, more humane and perhaps a better and more effective 'punishment?'
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Labels: Legal Matters., Religion.
posted by The Malaysian. at 1/25/2007 02:40:00 PM
8 Comments:
Normally the Saudi legal system is synonymous with harsh and painful punishments..This one is indeed a novelty, and on the face of it, it does seem like a fresh approach to the drug problem, which jails and pusat serenti cannot seem to solve
People forget that the whole idea of the penalty (jail or pusat serenti in the malaysian context), apart from punishing offenders, it is a form of deterrant, a form of depriving addicts from the dadah, getting them to try to stop whilst they are in jail or pusat serenti, minimising criminal acts like robbing, snachting etcetc if these people are not jailed or sent to pusat serenti. These are just some of the things that i can think of.
Details of the saudi punishment isnt very clear but from this article, it seems that the offender isnt jailed, he is free for the 6 months that he is asked to memorise the Quran.He can continue to take dadah during that period if he chooses too, he may commit criminal acts. AN offender has nothing to loose actually and thus it is not a deterrant!
NOw, with my explaination,is that better system than our system?
hmm, what about doing both? Placing them in Pusat Serenti and give them the Quran to memorise?
Boy, under the Saudi sytem those with low IQ and memory skills will never get out of jail.
Ha Ha! That's a good one Outsider.
we agree with warrior2 that pusat serenti and jails act to deter druggies from committing crime... but we just think it's such a lazy solution..there must be a better, more comprehensive way to deal with this problem than to simply lock em up? Or isn't there? Are we being too pro-active?
Sad to say, a big problem in blogs (and in life too, more so in life) is the level of comprehension of many of us! look at outsider. Outsider couldnt comprehend that offenders will only be jailed, and only for 1 year, WHEN they cannot memorise the quran within 6 months!The Malaysian, due to his lack of obvious comprehension, find outsider`s coomment sooooo wonderful! ah well.
or was it a joke outsider? hmm, if that was one, it was a bodo joke, the scenario kind! LOL
there's a big difference between memorizing the Quran and understanding it.
what's the point of memorizing something when you're not going to put into use any principle?
it's much better for the man in question to memorize just one line of the Quran and to put the principle found in that one line to practice.
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