Muslim cleric among four arrested for caning woman 82 strokes, stoning her 80 times over affair

A Muslim cleric is among four people who have been arrested in Bangladesh for ordering a woman to be caned and stoned as punishment for having an extramarital affair, under sharia laws.

Police say that Hamida Sultana was caned 82 strokes and stoned 80 times with small brick pieces after the imam issued the sharia law decree (fatwa) last week.

The punishment triggered a nation-wide outcry, with feminist groups as well as human rights activists staging demonstrations calling for the arrest of the perpetrators.

"They acted like medieval people," Fauzia Moslem, the president of the country's largest woman's group, told AFP.

Confirming the arrests on Monday, April 19, Police Inspector Zakir Hossain said officers arrested four people, including the imam of the mosque in Habiganj in the northeast, after Sultana filed a criminal case on April 7 against 17 people.

"The village council ordered the caning and stoning in the name of Sharia law after she was accused of an extramarital affair," Hossain told AFP.

According to Sultana, she was a victim of "terrible injustice". 

"I can't express in language what they did to me," the 30-year-old said.

Bangladesh lifts fatwa ban 

Bangladesh, a South Asian nation of 170 million people, has a secular legal system with most of the country's population practicing a moderate version of Islam.

In a 2011 ruling, Bangladesh's Supreme Court lifted a ban on fatwa. The court ruled that clerics can issue fatwas - Islamic religious edicts - but said that they cannot be enforced.

"No fatwa can be issued against the existing laws of the country. That means that no-one can dole out punishments in the name of a fatwa, especially when it may be mental or physical punishment," Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said at the time.