Malaysian rape law provokes storm

By Jonathan Kent
BBC correspondent in Kuala Lumpur

Women's groups in Malaysia want a change in attitudes

Women's groups in Malaysia have reacted angrily after one of the country's most senior Islamic clerics opposed calls for new laws to protect women from rape within marriage.

Malaysia's official human rights commission had asked parliament to make marital rape a crime.

However, the chief cleric or mufti of the state of Perak said that such a move is against Islam.

The status of women in Islamic law is one of the most fiercely-contested issues in Malaysia.

'Disobedient'

According to the mufti of Perak, women are subject to their husband's desires.

A husband has the right to be intimate with his wife and the wife must obey, he told one local newspaper.

If she refuses, the woman is "nusyuz" - disobedient.

"If the wife refuses, then the rule of 'nusyuz' (disobedient) applies and the husband is not required to provide financial assistance to her," said mufti Harussani Zakaria.

Islamic lawyers have voiced their support for the mufti, saying that a woman may only refuse her husband sex if he has a sexually transmitted disease.

Attitude change

Women's groups have expressed outrage.

Several have banded together to support the government's human rights commission in its efforts to establish a statutory offence of marital rape.

Campaigners say it would signal that husbands have no right to abuse their wives.

However, some Muslim women's groups argue that a change to the law is unnecessary and that a campaign to change attitudes would be a more effective way of combating the problem.

The mufti has made a number of controversial statements recently.

Earlier this month, he issued a religious edict banning Muslims from attending a series of family entertainment concerts organised by a Malaysian television station, which led one government minister to ask him to think again.