Malawian lawmakers will next week debate a law change
to criminalise public farting, which a cabinet minister said had
been encouraged by democracy.
"The government has a right to ensure public decency. We are
entitled to introduce order in the country," justice and
constitutional affairs minister George Chaponda told independent
radio station Capital Radio.
"Would you like to see people farting in public anywhere?"
Since the country embraced multi-party politics 16 years ago
people had felt free to fart anywhere, said Chaponda.
"It was not there during the time of dictatorship because people
were afraid of the consequences. Now because of multipartism or
freedom, people would like to fart anywhere, he said.
Chaponda, a key figure in President Bingu wa Mutharika's
government, said that if Malawians cannot control their farting
"they should go to the toilet instead of farting in public."
"Nature can be controlled... it becomes a nuisance if people
fart anywhere."
A lawyer himself, Chaponda said that under the amended law
farting will be considered a minor offence.
Chaponda's Democratic Progressive Party will bank on its
majority to pass the amendment to a law which was first introduced
in 1929.
The amendment, which will make farting in public an offence, is
not yet public and it will be presented to parliament for debate as
part of a review by the state-sponsored Law Commission of the
country's penal code.
Nobody in Malawi has been arrested nor convicted for farting
under the old law, as police did not enforce it.
The old law states: "Any person who voluntarily vitiates the
atmosphere in any place so as to make it noxious to the health of
persons in general dwelling or carrying on business in the
neighbourhood or passing along a public way, shall be guilty of a
misdemeanour."
The southern African state is a conservative society with
punishable previous bans on long hair for men and trouser-wearing
for women.
