Free Republic

Some time in the next few days, a Malaysian Muslim woman named Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno will be caned under Islamic laws for drinking glasses of beer in a hotel bar, and a number of political analysts say the country's increasingly fractious politics are partly to blame. The ruling National Front and the Islamist component of an opposition alliance are competing to place themselves as the guardians of a faith that has taken an increasingly political face in Malaysia over the last 20 years. The National Front accuses the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, of giving up some of its...