A 15-year-old girl sentenced to 100 lashes for "fornication" on a remote part of the Maldives is at the centre of a new row between moderates and religious conservatives in the Indian Ocean luxury tourist destination.
A court in the tiny island of Feydhoo last week sentenced the girl to a public flogging after she admitted to having sex out of wedlock, court officials have said.
The reportedly consensual sexual relations only came to light during an investigation into the murder of a baby which revealed that the girl had also been repeatedly raped by her stepfather and another man.
Such punishments are relatively commonplace in the Muslim country, visited by more than 750,000 tourists last year but increasingly hit by serious social problems such as gang violence and drug abuse as well as growing political instability.
Though they appear to have initially backed the decision to prosecute the girl, Maldivian authorities are now working with the country's ministry of Islamic affairs and judiciary to cancel or suspend the punishment, a government official said.
Masood Imad, a spokesman for the current president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, told the Guardian that the government considered her a victim "who should not now become a victim of the law as well".
"The law is there to protect her. It will take its course but we are fully engaged and we have some levers and we are hopeful that she will not be lashed. Let's see who wins the day," Imad said.
Conservatives, however, are calling for the sentence to be carried out.
Recent years have seen tensions between Muslims practising a traditional, relatively tolerant type of Islam and supporters of a more rigorous, puritanical style heavily influenced by that practised in countries such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.
There have also been increasingly acrimonious clashes between both elements and liberal reformers, such as the former president and internationally respected environmental campaigner Mohamed Nasheed.
Nasheed was ousted just over a year ago following weeks of agitation by Islamist parties such as Adhalaat (Justice) against his administration. Issues such as alcohol, idols and relations with Israel all became flashpoints. One secularist blogger was badly injured and a member of parliament killed in knife attacks blamed on extremists. Nasheed was accused of trying to undermine the Muslim faith and culture of the 400,000 inhabitants of the island nation.
Adhalaat, which has only marginal support in the Maldives, has strongly backed the punishment, issuing a statement in the local language of Dhivehi saying that the girl "deserved the punishment" which was "not an act of violence".
According to a translation by local website Minivan News, the statement said "the purpose of penalties like these in Islamic sharia is to maintain order in society and to save it from sinful acts".
"We must turn a deaf ear to the international organisations which are calling to abolish these penalties, labelling them degrading and inhumane acts or torture," the statement read.
It also called for those accused of abusing the girl to be punished if found guilty.
Adhalaat officials have yet to respond to a request from the Guardian asking for clarification of their position.
The case is an embarassment for a government which has struggled to establish its legitimacy internationally and which is currently pushing for re-election to the UN human rights council.
Recent statistics show more than 100 people were sentenced to lashes – administered with a type of flat bat rather than a cord whip – for "fornication" in 2011, including 11 minors. The vast majority were women.
A statement from the United Nations earlier this week stressed that the girl was "allegedly a victim of long-standing sexual abuse" and that "under international legal human rights, corporal punishment, including flogging, amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or even to torture."
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, in 2011 urged Maldives to end the "degrading" practice of flogging.
"This practice constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women, and should have no place in the legal framework of a democratic country," Pillay said at the Maldives parliament. Her comments provoked a fierce reaction from conservatives.
The case is one of many that have highlighted tensions over women's rights and sexual violence in south Asia in recent weeks.
Protesters angered by the rape of a seven-year-old in a school were dispersed by police in the Indian capital Delhi on Friday. The gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi in December prompted weeks of demonstrations and calls for widespread cultural change.
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