Nazri says tourists may stay away from Kelantan

Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Aziz ready to promote other states, saying not many tourists head for east coast state anyway.

KUALA LUMPUR: Tourism and Culture Minister Mohamed Nazri Aziz says it is up to Kelantan if the state government wants to deter tourists by implementing public caning.

“Tourists can go to other states, like Sabah, Sarawak, Langkawi and Kuala Lumpur.

“Top of my list (to promote) will be Sabah. It is a real gem,” he said, adding that not many tourists visited Kelantan compared with other states.

Nazri was responding to a question on the impact on the tourism industry in the east coast state after the Kelantan state assembly yesterday passed an amendment to its shariah law enactment that would allow public caning in the state.

He also called former information minister Zainuddin Maidin a “stupid fellow” for trying to provoke the matter further by saying that Nazri had a new “tourist attraction” to promote abroad with the public caning.

The Umno minister said Islam was a state matter and did not come under the tourism and culture ministry’s portfolio.

Zainuddin had said although such punishments are also carried out in Brunei and Saudi Arabia, Malaysia is unique in the sense that the country is a democratic country, whereas Brunei and Saudi Arabia are absolute monarchies.

He said due to that, it could be a new Malaysian tourism product for Nazri to sell overseas so that non-Muslims, particularly those from developed nations, could see the ancient and barbaric punishments being carried out in democratic and modern Malaysia.

In June last year, Nazri had said that Kelantan was in need of harsher shariah laws as there were more shariah crimes being committed there, and that the Muslims in the state are not afraid of existing punishments.

The Indonesian province of Acheh also uses public caning as a means of punishing certain shariah offences. The country adopts a democratic republic system.

Yesterday, Bernama reported that the Kelantan state legislative assembly had unanimously passed the Syariah Criminal Procedure Enactment 2002 (Amendment 2017). -FMT