SODOMY TRIALS ARE MOSTLY ABOUT THE ACT OF DEFIANCE, SELF-DENIAL AND THE SNARING OF THE LEGAL PROCESS.
…IT JUST IS AN ATTEMPT TO DELAY JUDGMENT AND PUNISHMENT MOSTLY.
By Mansor Puteh
IN MALAYSIA SODOMY TRIALS ARE FEW AND FAR IN BETWEEN; THE FEW THAT HAD BEEN BROUGHT TO COURT HAVE ALL BROUGHT A CONVICTION WITH THOSE WHO HAD BEEN CONVICTED GOING TO PRISON TO SERVE THEIR SENTENCE UNANNOUNCED.
IT IS NOT EASY TO FRAME ANYONE FOR COMMITTING SODOMY ESPECIALLY IF THE ACTS NORMALLY LEAVE A LONG TRAIL FOR THE PROSECUTORS TO FOLLOW FROM THE TIME THE COUPLE MEETS AND HOW THEY WENT ABOUT THEIR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP UNTIL SODOMY HAPPENED UNTIL THEIR RELATIONSHIP TURNS SOUR FOR SOME REASONS OR OTHER.
ON THE OTHER HAND, TO FRAME ANYONE FOR COMMITTIING SODOMY BRINGS FORTH A LOT OF CONFICTING EVIDENCE AND WITNESSES.
So there is no way for the person who alleged to have been sodomized to want to do that simply because it involves the whole time and frame possibilities with many incidents and characters related to it with one witness or incident that conflicts with the scenario can render the charge to be inherently defective.
And relating the scenario can become fodder for the media, because of the juicy information that is revealed.
So it is also not easy for anyone to escape conviction, except if the court has a lot of time to listen to all the diatribes and insidious insinuations that the person can cast on the judiciary and also the government.
The only way for a person who has been charged with sodomy therefore is to take the medical route to avoid getting a conviction.
And it is strange how someone who has been charged openly for having committed sodomy can go about doing his daily business as though it is nothing and his family members and close friends can ignore it like it did not matter to them anymore.
He does not feel any shame.
He goes about doing his business and does not look like he is affected by the scandal which lesser men would feel offended and utterly shameful so much so that he could not bear to be in public and look in the eye with his relatives and friends.
This is a great advantage a person who is in the public eye has over someone who is private who safeguards his privacy.
But it still does not mean that the person who faces a sodomy charge can go about feeling unremorseful and not guilty.
Having a bank of legal advisers and other cohorts help in his case as he does not have to feel alone.
Because in the end, it’s the courts and public who will be made fools of while the condemned sodomists try to see what ‘other benefits’ he could get from them.
Earlier sodomy trials had gone on quietly without any drama. But sodomy ii seems to be going around and around.
Why did the prosecution have to deal with medical issues first? They should have taken the matter on the scenario and relationship first to see if there are signs of that and ‘an understanding’ and ‘a relationship’.
The medical aspects can come in next. So even if there are no medical proofs, at the very least there is a relationship. And this is good enough to prove that homosexual relationship had happened between the two parties.
What else is there to prove?
Unfortunately for many, there won’t be any as they languish in prison, if this is the just justice that they had been craving for to prove their innocence they were expecting to get.
It all boils down to this: If a lesser person had been charged for sodomy, his trial would have gone almost unnoticed. Not an inch of news would have been published in the papers or a minute of it reported on national news on television.
And no mattress would have been produced as evidence during the course of the trial which could not be dragged on and on for months and even years. Everything would be over in a matter of weeks if not days.
The person who was charged for committing sodomy or ‘acting against the laws of nature’ would have got natural justice and be sent to prison to continue his incarceration from the public for years until he is forgotten, and until his basic animal instincts had been forgotten.
And the said person had to languish in prison without being able to create any sort of out-of-court drama whatsoever.
Some men had actually been charged for sodomy and duly sentenced. They took it gentlemanly without a fuss since they knew right from the start what they were doing was a crime, for which they did not have to argue with anyone with, unless if they are in another country where it is not such.
The strange part is that these lesser men who had been charged would have gone to the courts with their faces covered, while those who know they are guilty as charged would often go there with their heads held high.
The reasons are obvious, since they are people of substance and some history; so there is no point for them to hide their faces. Their photos are everywhere. And the media have many of them to use including video footages especially.
I know of a story of a man who had been charged for sodomy, who had once been invited to attend a dance performance staged by The Eighties Drama Center which later became known simply as The Drama Center.
The performance was at the then Experimental Theater of Universiti Malaya, and this man was invited as the guest-of-honor, since he knew the producers and directors from the group from their boarding school days, and also because he is now a better known and recognized person in Malaysian politics.
However, a few minutes into the show, this man, who was then not married yet and was still young left the hall. The reason was because he said he did not like to look at the sight of men performing in the play who were wearing leotards, with their crutches protruding.
Was he against seeing such a sight because he was not able to see more of it?
Unfortunately, charges of sodomy have not been heard to have been instituted in the west, especially with consenting male adults because it is not a crime there.
However, if similar acts were to have been committed in Malaysia, they have to go by the laws of the country. It is the law which no one had actually objected to and taken the mater for debate in parliament so that such laws could be considered for repeal.
And where were the lawyers of high profile cases who are said to be concerned about how justice might be tempered with because they claim their clients had been charged wrongly, so they demand their cases be heard?
But why are they only concerned in high profile cases? Because the stakes are high.
Yet, more surprisingly is how there is no one or group which has even tried to circumvent the process by trying to repeal such laws so that sodomy is not a crime anymore between two consenting adults in Malaysia, so the onus of those who charge for having been sodomized must prove that what had happened to them was not by consent.
By Mansor Puteh
IN MALAYSIA SODOMY TRIALS ARE FEW AND FAR IN BETWEEN; THE FEW THAT HAD BEEN BROUGHT TO COURT HAVE ALL BROUGHT A CONVICTION WITH THOSE WHO HAD BEEN CONVICTED GOING TO PRISON TO SERVE THEIR SENTENCE UNANNOUNCED.
IT IS NOT EASY TO FRAME ANYONE FOR COMMITTING SODOMY ESPECIALLY IF THE ACTS NORMALLY LEAVE A LONG TRAIL FOR THE PROSECUTORS TO FOLLOW FROM THE TIME THE COUPLE MEETS AND HOW THEY WENT ABOUT THEIR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP UNTIL SODOMY HAPPENED UNTIL THEIR RELATIONSHIP TURNS SOUR FOR SOME REASONS OR OTHER.
ON THE OTHER HAND, TO FRAME ANYONE FOR COMMITTIING SODOMY BRINGS FORTH A LOT OF CONFICTING EVIDENCE AND WITNESSES.
So there is no way for the person who alleged to have been sodomized to want to do that simply because it involves the whole time and frame possibilities with many incidents and characters related to it with one witness or incident that conflicts with the scenario can render the charge to be inherently defective.
And relating the scenario can become fodder for the media, because of the juicy information that is revealed.
So it is also not easy for anyone to escape conviction, except if the court has a lot of time to listen to all the diatribes and insidious insinuations that the person can cast on the judiciary and also the government.
The only way for a person who has been charged with sodomy therefore is to take the medical route to avoid getting a conviction.
And it is strange how someone who has been charged openly for having committed sodomy can go about doing his daily business as though it is nothing and his family members and close friends can ignore it like it did not matter to them anymore.
He does not feel any shame.
He goes about doing his business and does not look like he is affected by the scandal which lesser men would feel offended and utterly shameful so much so that he could not bear to be in public and look in the eye with his relatives and friends.
This is a great advantage a person who is in the public eye has over someone who is private who safeguards his privacy.
But it still does not mean that the person who faces a sodomy charge can go about feeling unremorseful and not guilty.
Having a bank of legal advisers and other cohorts help in his case as he does not have to feel alone.
Because in the end, it’s the courts and public who will be made fools of while the condemned sodomists try to see what ‘other benefits’ he could get from them.
Earlier sodomy trials had gone on quietly without any drama. But sodomy ii seems to be going around and around.
Why did the prosecution have to deal with medical issues first? They should have taken the matter on the scenario and relationship first to see if there are signs of that and ‘an understanding’ and ‘a relationship’.
The medical aspects can come in next. So even if there are no medical proofs, at the very least there is a relationship. And this is good enough to prove that homosexual relationship had happened between the two parties.
What else is there to prove?
Unfortunately for many, there won’t be any as they languish in prison, if this is the just justice that they had been craving for to prove their innocence they were expecting to get.
It all boils down to this: If a lesser person had been charged for sodomy, his trial would have gone almost unnoticed. Not an inch of news would have been published in the papers or a minute of it reported on national news on television.
And no mattress would have been produced as evidence during the course of the trial which could not be dragged on and on for months and even years. Everything would be over in a matter of weeks if not days.
The person who was charged for committing sodomy or ‘acting against the laws of nature’ would have got natural justice and be sent to prison to continue his incarceration from the public for years until he is forgotten, and until his basic animal instincts had been forgotten.
And the said person had to languish in prison without being able to create any sort of out-of-court drama whatsoever.
Some men had actually been charged for sodomy and duly sentenced. They took it gentlemanly without a fuss since they knew right from the start what they were doing was a crime, for which they did not have to argue with anyone with, unless if they are in another country where it is not such.
The strange part is that these lesser men who had been charged would have gone to the courts with their faces covered, while those who know they are guilty as charged would often go there with their heads held high.
The reasons are obvious, since they are people of substance and some history; so there is no point for them to hide their faces. Their photos are everywhere. And the media have many of them to use including video footages especially.
I know of a story of a man who had been charged for sodomy, who had once been invited to attend a dance performance staged by The Eighties Drama Center which later became known simply as The Drama Center.
The performance was at the then Experimental Theater of Universiti Malaya, and this man was invited as the guest-of-honor, since he knew the producers and directors from the group from their boarding school days, and also because he is now a better known and recognized person in Malaysian politics.
However, a few minutes into the show, this man, who was then not married yet and was still young left the hall. The reason was because he said he did not like to look at the sight of men performing in the play who were wearing leotards, with their crutches protruding.
Was he against seeing such a sight because he was not able to see more of it?
Unfortunately, charges of sodomy have not been heard to have been instituted in the west, especially with consenting male adults because it is not a crime there.
However, if similar acts were to have been committed in Malaysia, they have to go by the laws of the country. It is the law which no one had actually objected to and taken the mater for debate in parliament so that such laws could be considered for repeal.
And where were the lawyers of high profile cases who are said to be concerned about how justice might be tempered with because they claim their clients had been charged wrongly, so they demand their cases be heard?
But why are they only concerned in high profile cases? Because the stakes are high.
Yet, more surprisingly is how there is no one or group which has even tried to circumvent the process by trying to repeal such laws so that sodomy is not a crime anymore between two consenting adults in Malaysia, so the onus of those who charge for having been sodomized must prove that what had happened to them was not by consent.
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