Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Manohara & the Prince of Kelantan

Every year, the Indonesian people celebrate the 21st of April as the birthday of Kartini i.e. a lady whose ideas have made the status of Indonesian females equal to the males.

But yesterday, the celebration was disturbed by a very strange news about the kidnap of a 17 years old Indonesian model i.e Manohara Pinot, by Tengku Muhammad Fakhry (31) Prince of Kelantan, Malaysia, who happened to be her own husband.

According to KapanLagi, the couple was married on 26 August 2008 not long after they met, when Manohara was only 16 years old and the Prince was already 30 years old. Apparently, their marriage did not go well, because the Prince turned out to be a brutal, high tempered, possessive & sex maniac who’ll ruthlessly beat his wife if he did not get what he wants. His brutality include slashing Manohara’s breast with a razor. Obviously, Manohara cannot stand it any longer, so at the end of December 2008 she runnaway to her mother in Jakarta.

According to Oktavita, the prince then made efforts to restore the shattered relationship with his wife and family and get Manohara back. In early March he took them all to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for an Umrah Pilgrimage. Then on the way back to Jakarta, as they transited in Kuala Lumpur airport, four of the prince’s men snatched Manohara out of the airport.

Manohara’s mother, Daisy Fajarina, held a press conference last Monday, 20 April, in which she said that she has tried to ask the King of Kelantan to persuade his son to free Manohara, but failed. She also said that she has now been banned to enter Malaysia.

Considering the above, Detik reported that the National Human Rights Comission urged the Indonesian government to bring this case to be settled legally according to the Malaysian laws.

It is very sad, especially when we are celebrating Kartini Day, to hear that a girl as young as 16 years old can be allowed to marry someone a lot much older, yet rich & aristocrate, whom she and her mother barely knew.