Cow-head protesters fined RM1,000 each for illegal assembly
According to The Star, a Malaysian daily, 12 participants of the infamous cow-head protest last August were individually fined RM1,000 or a month of jail time in default by the Sessions Court in Shah Alam.
AP File Photo
Also, two defendants were slapped with a RM3,000 fine each for a sedition charge. One of them was additionally sentenced to a week in prison.
Four others who were similarly prosecuted for sedition were issued a discharge not amounting to an acquittal.
All 12 had pleaded guilty to the offense (illegal assembly) committed at the Selangor State Secretariat building in Shah Alam on August 28th, 2009.
The case has received much local and international attention due to the contrast between its religiously charged nature and Malaysia's much-acclaimed status of a moderate Muslim nation.
The 12 defendants were part of a group that brought a cow's severed head to the gate of a state government building to protest the relocation of a Hindu temple to their neighbourhood.
The cow is a sacred animal in the Hindu religion. The incident had threatened to inflame tensions between the Muslim majority and non-Muslim minorities in the relatively prosperous and progressive Southeast Asian country.
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