Mali Islamist lash couple 100 times for out of wedlock child

The Islamists occupying northern Mali on Wednesday gave a couple 100 lashes of a whip for having a child out of wedlock, Sowetan Live reports.

Mali Flag Photo/S Kopp via wikimedia commons

“At Sankore Square in Timbuktu, a man and a women got 100 lashes for having had a child outside of marriage,” said local official Mohamed Ould Baby.

“People were watching it was like a show. I was there, I saw the youths arriving at the square, I saw them being whipped, it is the first time I have seen something like that.”

The official said Islamist group Ansar Dine, call themselves Defenders of Faith, carried out the punishment.

Ansar Dine claimed control of Mali’s vast northeast regions in March. The AFP reported that Ansar Dine claimed to occupy the towns of Tinzaouaten, Tessalit and Aguelhok, all close to the Algerian border, and that they had captured at least 110 civilian and military prisoners.

They have asked women to wear veils, whipped smokers and destroyed cartons of cigarettes while banning the sale of alcohol.

According to sharia, or Islamic law, 100 lashes of a whip is the punishment for “fornicators” or those who have sex outside of marriage.

A hospital source in Timbuktu said the couple had sought treatment at the hospital after the beating.

An Islamic police official in the town said six other women who had had children outside of marriage would soon be “punished by Islamic law”.