A Malaysian court has jailed a woman for following a bizarre cult centred around a giant teapot.
She was sentenced on Monday for declaring herself an apostate while she was still a Muslim, news agency Bernama said.
Apostasy is a criminal offence in mainly Muslim Malaysia, whose state religion is Islam but which tolerates other major religions.
Kamariah Ali, a widow with four children, was arrested in 2005 along with 57 other followers of the cult built around a giant teapot.
The outlawed Sky Kingdom sect, headed by a man who says he is God and owner of everything, believes the teapot has healing properties.
The teapot, which symbolized water's purity and 'love pouring from heaven', was sadly demolished by the government at the time of the arrests.
An Islamic court sentenced Kamariah, a 57-year-old former teacher, to two years in jail after she was found guilty of apostasy and refused to repent, Bernama reported.
'What she did was not within the concept of freedom of religion,' Bernama quoted judge Mohamad Abdullah as saying.
This is not the first time Kamariah has been imprisoned for her teapot-following ways - she was previously jailed in 1992 for the same crime.
Her lawyer, Sa'adiah Din, said: 'This has to stop. They can't be sending her again and again to prison for this.'
She was sentenced on Monday for declaring herself an apostate while she was still a Muslim, news agency Bernama said.
Apostasy is a criminal offence in mainly Muslim Malaysia, whose state religion is Islam but which tolerates other major religions.
Kamariah Ali, a widow with four children, was arrested in 2005 along with 57 other followers of the cult built around a giant teapot.
The outlawed Sky Kingdom sect, headed by a man who says he is God and owner of everything, believes the teapot has healing properties.
The teapot, which symbolized water's purity and 'love pouring from heaven', was sadly demolished by the government at the time of the arrests.
An Islamic court sentenced Kamariah, a 57-year-old former teacher, to two years in jail after she was found guilty of apostasy and refused to repent, Bernama reported.
'What she did was not within the concept of freedom of religion,' Bernama quoted judge Mohamad Abdullah as saying.
This is not the first time Kamariah has been imprisoned for her teapot-following ways - she was previously jailed in 1992 for the same crime.
Her lawyer, Sa'adiah Din, said: 'This has to stop. They can't be sending her again and again to prison for this.'
3 comments:
she sounds potty to me
I am a teapot.
Short and stout, Dinners?
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