In a statement, Sisters in Islam (SIS) said a mosque is a sacred space for worship and reflection.

“To use a house of worship for such a dehumanising act is a profound violation of its sanctity. This is not justice,” it said.

SIS also described the decision as a degrading spectacle that stripped individuals of their dignity in full view of an audience.

“It is a violent, shameful act designed to humiliate, not educate.”

The Terengganu shariah High Court had ordered a widower to be given six strokes of the rotan, making Affendi Awang, 42, the first person to be publicly whipped in the state for khalwat after pleading guilty to a repeated offence of being in close proximity with a 52-year-old woman.

The father of five will be caned at Masjid Al Muktafi Billah Shah in Kuala Terengganu after Friday prayers on Dec 6.

In meting out the sentence, the judge said the main purpose of the punishment was to serve as a lesson and deterrent for Affendi and other Muslims.

However, SIS dismissed the justification of public caning as a form of education, calling the act nothing more than a tactic of humiliation for the individual and a morbid display for spectators.

“Public caning serves no meaningful purpose in justice or moral reform. It reduces the law to a grotesque spectacle and punishment to public entertainment. This is not the Islam we know, and it is not the Malaysia we aspire to build,” it said.

It added that the nation should take the path of justice, compassion, and progress over violence, shame, and regression.

SIS had criticised similar punishments in the past and challenged the PAS-led Kelantan government to prove its claim that the public caning of shariah offenders is part of Islam.

The group said that such a “deplorable” form of shaming was no way to solve the moral decay that the state was facing, adding that it would only victimise the weaker sections of society.