ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two Australian teenaged girls were caned and deported recently in the
Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. The two, both aged seventeen, pleaded
guilty to possession of a small quantity of a controlled substance,
marijuana. Both claimed ignorance of the law as their defense. Whilst the
corporal punishment of adult females is not permitted in Malaysia, juveniles
under age eighteen of both sexes may be awarded canings for certain offences
at the discretion of courts. A lighter cane is used in these instances than
the type of cane used with adult males. The illegal drug was discovered in
the girls' hotel room by a maid who reported her find to the hotel manager.
The police were called and the two were arrested upon their return to the
hotel. They were charged with the possession and brought before a magistrate
who accepted their guilty plea before sentencing them to be caned and then
deported immediately. Each girl received eight strokes. Upon arrival at the
Melbourne airport, one of the girls gave an account of their ordeal for
Australian radio.

"We were taken to a police station and escorted by three policewomen into
some kind of office. There were metal filing cabinets and a chair in the
middle of the floor. A fourth policewoman was waiting there with a cane. The
cane was quite thin like at school but a bit longer. We were pretty scared.
The policewoman with the cane smiled at us and asked which one of us wanted
to be first. I volunteered. I just wanted it to be over with. I was told to
take off my dress and pantyhose and bend over the chair. While I was doing
this she was taking practice swings with the cane. One of the other
policewomen came over and held my wrists while I was bent over. The caning
started and I screamed blue bloody murder. I didn't think anything could hurt
that much."

A doctor who examined both girls two days after the canings stated that
visible raised weals and abrasions consistent with severe caning were present
on the buttocks and legs of both girls. The parents appealed to the
Australian government, however a government spokesperson said that no action
was planned. A source in Kuala Lumpur stated that such punishment was
expected in Malaysia and that the girls had been treated leniently. A local
youth had recently received twelve strokes for the same offence, said the
source.

Weekly World News:
Nov. 25th 1997

Westerners were horrified when English (!) nurse Lucille McLauchlan was recently sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia. But Lucille would not be the first Western woman to be publically flogged in the Moslem country. Danielle Pantinella of East Orange, New Jersey went through the same painful and demeaning experience when she received a dose of Islamic "justice" there in 1989. Here, exclusively for Weekly World News readers is Danielle's chilling (!) account of her horrific ordeal.

"For the love of Allah please stop! Please don't whip me again!" Tears streaming down my cheeks, my voice quaking in craven terror, I let out that pitiful cry as the Saudi guard raised the bamboo whip-cane high above his head and prepared to bring it down on my back for the 50th time. My body ached from the strokes that had bitten into my bare flesh and I was woozy from the pain. But when I heard the jeering roar of approval, I knew my captors would show no mercy.

As I heard the the awful sound of the cane swishing through the air once again, I passed out. And in that moment of darkness my mind drifted back to the day when the nightmare had begun.

At the time I was a naive 18 year old college student visiting Saudi Arabia. I was having a ball, but was running low on cash. I wandered into a store in the capital, Riyadh where I made the biggest mistake of life. I tried to sneak off with a bag of potato chips I hadn't paid for and the owner promptly spotted me. He called the police and the next thing I knew I was under arrest. I was thrown in a jail cell in the police station. Later on a judge sentenced me to 75 strokes of the cane for shoplifting.

The next morning I was loaded into a truck with six guards, who drove me to the market square.

To my horror, they ordered me to unbutton the back of my prison shift and bend over the back of a chair they had brought along. Two guards held my hands to keep me in position. Adding to my humiliation, hundreds of shoppers gathered around to gawk.

I looked back over my shoulder - and saw that one of the other guards had raised a long thin bamboo cane and was about to bring it down. I closed my eyes and braced myself.

There was a loud swishing sound and I felt a sharp, stinging pain across my butt, as if I had been stabbed with a knife. I winced and tears began to roll down my cheeks, but I was determined I wouldn't give the onlookers the satisfaction of hearing me scream.

One after another, the strokes whipped down across my back, thighs and buttocks in a crisscrossing pattern. And every time the cane cut into me, the crowd shouted in delight. I heard one woman cry out, "Give the infidel what she deserves!"

Finally, I couldn't hold it back. I began to howl in agony and begged for mercy - then I collapsed into unconciousness.

When I came to hours later, I was back in my bunk in the jail cell. The backs of my thighs, my bottom and my lower back were striped with dozens of painfully swollen welts. I was released and you can bet I hopped on the first plane back to the U.S.!