Wednesday, October 26, 2011

"You have been warned..."

From my experience Malaysia Airlines is a lovely carrier. They have a good safety record, the planes are comfortable, and the flight attendants are not only pretty, they're nice. However, when I flew them to go from Japan to Switzerland in the summer of 2000 the first thing I was greeted by when I sat in my seat was a friendly admonition printed on the back of the seat before me. This was over ten years ago and I wish I could find the actual text but if memory serves me correct the following was written in an appropriately bloody shade:

You have been warned. Drug trafficking carries the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia.

It made me wish I could roll down the window and throw out my Tylenol tablets.

I bring this up because recently a Japanese woman was sentenced to hang by a Malaysian court for carrying 3.5 kilograms of meth amphetamines in a travel bag. I understand every country has a sovereign right to determine its own laws but shouldn't possession be regarded as 'having drugs' rather than automatically as 'trafficking drugs'? This mad law leaves people vulnerable to being set up and then sentenced to death by a kangaroo legal system that has little transparency or due process. I'll give Malaysia this much credit- the woman can appeal (and plans to do so) and if this fails the sultan (the head of the state in which she was tried) can pardon her. Still, I wouldn't carry someone else's bag (like she did) and I'd keep both eyes and locks on my bags when traveling through countries with a law like this. After all, can we trust a country that still has hereditary sultans as heads of states? Haven't they seen Aladdin over there? Yes, I know, Jafar was the Grand Vizier, not the sultan. Still, same difference. What's to be done for the woman if the sultan of that state has a Jafar-like character whispering into his ear.

Jokes aside, I hope this woman's appeal succeeds or that the sultan is a nice guy and pardons her so she can come home. Meanwhile, I don't care how pretty the flight attendants are, I'm not flying Malaysia Airlines anytime soon.

2 comments:

Tim Kerr said...

Yeah I think you have the sign correct. I recall a similar sign that welcomed me to Bali years and years ago.

Phoenixkidd said...

The Muslim world is very strict in it's reprocutions that's why I think Malaysia is so strict in it's penalties add to that 100 years of so of colonisation by the Brits who were also quite unforgiving and brutal. BTW flew Malaysian air quite a few times, and loved it, they are beautiful stewardesses indeed and they had tv's at each seat as far back as 1996.