| Yawning
Bread. 8 November 2008
Man killed for exposing himself
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From the gay grapevine,, I gathered that not a few people wondered whether the six were being let off lightly because Suhaimi had made homosexual passes at them. Gay people are very sensitive to this possibility. There have been many cases in other countries where courts have been lenient towards those acting violently in response to what they claimed was a homosexual provocation. Typically, defence counsel argued that the accused quite understandably were alarmed and lost control when propositioned by the victim. The shock of receiving the proposition was so great, they responded in panic; they therefore cannot be held fully responsible for their violent reaction. There have been numerous cases where courts were sympathetic to this argument -- known as the "homosexual panic defence" -- and let the accused off rather lightly. Each time, however, the criticism would be: What if the case was one where a man lewdly propositioned and even exposed himself to a woman? This kind of thing happens regularly in various entertainment spots. If the woman summoned her friends and together beat the man to death, would the court accept a "heterosexual panic defence"? I think most people would consider it ridiculous. Such reaction by the women, or even their boyfriends, would be considered culpably disproportionate. So why the difference? Some would argue that it is valid to make the distinction between a homosexual proposition and a heterosexual one. The former can justify panic and over-reaction while the latter does not simply because society is more disapproving of homosexuality. Yet, this line of argument would have the effect of saying the law should close one eye to people acting out of prejudice, however subconsciously, and that responsibility for inflicting injury is reduced when the victim belongs to a marginalised class. How would that square with the dictum "The equal protection of law"? Example: A woman is propositioned by someone of the same race. She beats him to death. Another woman is propositioned by a foreign worker of a darker complexion. She beats him to death. Should the second woman be left off more lightly? * * * * *
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But hang on -- is the suspicion that the Attorney-General's Chambers were swayed by such an argument fair in the Suhaimi Sulong case? I don't think so. There is precedent for this. In September 2007, charges against Ibrahim Abdul Rahman, 27, and Alfe Rohan Bakri, 32 -– originally for murder, as reported after their arraignment in April that year -- were also reduced to voluntarily causing hurt, for the death of Eugene Chua. In the box on the right is a news story about the incident in which Chua ended up dead. As you can see, the beating of Chua came out of what the judge called a "trivial incident". The three women attacked him first. Their boyfriends attacked him again when, a little while later, they found out what had happened outside the toilet. Similarly disproportionate was the reaction of the six young men against Suhaimi Sulong in the Orchard Towers case.
Some time later, Suhaimi approached Ahmad Nur Helmy, 20, in the toilet and exposed himself to the younger man. Possibly, Suhaimi did not know that Ahmad was friends with Ho and Lai.
The victim died of head injuries an hour later. * * * * * Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as "manslaughter" in our Penal Code. It is instead referred to as "culpable homicide not amounting to murder", the sentence for which can be one of two kinds:
In both the Eugene Chua and Suhaimi Sulong cases, it would have been difficult for the prosecution to prove that their assailants intended to cause death, and so the higher of the two penalties could not have been asked for. At best, therefore, the prosecution could only have asked the court for the lower of the two grades of manslaughter, i.e. up to 10 years' imprisonment. The reduced charge in both cases -– voluntarily causing grievous hurt –- also carries a maximum sentence of 10 years' imprisonment [2], with fine and caning. In that sense, one could argue that the so-called reduction in charges was academic. * * * * * Three of them -– 17-year-olds Ho, Lai and Muhammad Ridhwan, 20 -- were sent by the judge to a reformative training centre, where they would be "confined for between 18 months and three years and put through a tough regimen of foot drills, counselling, education and vocational training," said the Straits Times. [3] The judge was probably giving them a chance to realise the error of their ways, in light of their youth. However, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on discipline ("foot drills") and obeying orders in the reformative training centre, and I don't know if that is any solution to the problem of homophobia. In the minds of those who act offensively against gay people, they are not breaking orders. On the contrary, psychologists have found that these aggressors feel justified in their violence, because they see themselves as enforcers of a moral code, on behalf of society. To them, their victim -– the gay person -- is the one breaking rules. To put homophobic people through a regimen where observance of rules is stressed may in fact reinforce their tendencies to act out their antipathy. Curing homophobia requires teaching people to question received authority, peer pressure and the whole notion of social conformity. What is therefore really needed is counselling -- self esteem, seeing others in a new light, anger management. How much of that is available in reform centres, I don't know. What counsellors say about gay people in such sessions -- in a state institution to boot -- I don't know. Muhammad Sufian Zainal, 21, and Helmi Abdul Rahim, 28 [4], were sentenced to 4 years' jail and 6 strokes of the cane. Ahmad, whom the judge said played a "key role", was given 4-and-a-half years' jail and 8 strokes of the cane. You can compare this to the sentences given out for the death of Eugene Chua. Alfe Rohan Bakrie got 4 years and 6 strokes, while Ibrahim Abdul Rahman got 4-1/2 years and 6 strokes. The third man, Clarence Soh, is still at large. Of the three women involved, Marliana got 4 years' jail for causing grievous hurt. She had not only punched Eugene Chua at the start of the incident, but towards the end, "while Mr Chua lay unconscious on the floor, Marliana walked over to him and gave him two kicks -- on the head and chest." [5] Nurashikin and Shariah were each given 2-1/2 years under the charge of rioting. Clearly, the court is being consistent in
the way it handed down sentences between the Eugene Chua and Suhaimi
Sulong cases. I don't see any basis for accusing either the prosecutor or
court of undue leniency when violence erupted after someone made a
homosexual proposition. Readers however may ponder whether, overall, the sentences
are too heavy or light, given that a death resulted in each case -– but
that, of course, is a separate debate. © Yawning Bread
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Footnotes
Addenda None
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At first sight, it certainly had the appearance of bias, the way the Attorney-General's
chambers reduced charges from manslaughter to voluntarily causing grievous
hurt, in the case of the death of Suhaimi Sulong. Suhaimi was brutally
punched and kicked in the head by six young men outside the Brown Sugar
Pub in Orchard Towers last November, and died from those blows.
