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BUDDHA: Gender Apartheid in Malaysia?


Gad, I should write headlines for the CM!!!


MEN, WOMEN TO GO SEPARATE WAYS AT CITY SUPERMARKETS

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- A city municipality governed by an Islamic party
in northeastern Malaysia has ordered all supermarkets to set up separate
payment counters for men and women, a newspaper reported Monday.

The Star said Kota Bahru Municipal Council also has ordered supermarkets to
close from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Fridays, the Muslim sabbath when the devout
go to mosques for prayers.

The new rules will come into effect Jan. 15, the star said quoting the
municipal council's spokesman Azman Mohamed Dahan.

Kota Bahru is capital of Kelantan state, the only one of Malaysia's 13
states to be governed by the Pan Malaysian Islamic party.

The Star quoted Azman as saying that the separate queues in supermarkets is
to prevent excessive mingling of men and women during peak hours in line
with Islamic tenets. All supermarkets have agreed to comply, he said.

The party, since coming to power five years ago in Kelantan, has restricted
the sale of liquor and prohibited dances and public events where men and
women participate together.

It has said it wants to implement harsher Islamic laws such as chopping
robbers' hands and stoning adulterers to death but has failed to obtain the
federal government's permission.
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