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Amnesty International on Wednesday urged Malaysia to end a caning "epidemic," saying that authorities have meted out the punishment to thousands of men in addition to the high-profile case of three women.
Malaysian authorities said Wednesday that they had caned three women for having extramarital sex in violation of Islamic law, a first in the Muslim-majority country.
But Amnesty International said the case was the "just the tip of the iceberg" and that Malaysia often caned men for routine offenses.
Citing Malaysian authorities, the London-based human rights group said authorities caned more than 35,000 people -- mostly non-Malaysians -- for immigration violations since 2002.
"These thousands of cases point to an epidemic of caning in Malaysia," said Donna Guest, the group's deputy Asia-Pacific director.
"The Malaysian government needs to abolish this cruel and degrading punishment, no matter what the offense," she said in a statement.
The latest caning case will fuel a debate over rising "Islamization" in the ethnically diverse nation, where authorities last year sentenced a mother-of-two to six strokes of the cane for drinking beer in a nightclub.
