KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Two Malaysian women convicted of attempting lesbian sex in a car were caned in court watched by dozens of people on Monday, media and a state government official said, prompting an outcry from human rights activists.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community is routinely persecuted in Muslim-majority Malaysia, where they are seen as a threat to conservative values.

The women, aged 32 and 22, had pleaded guilty last month to attempting lesbian sex, forbidden under Islamic law. They were sentenced to a fine and six lashings of the cane.

The sentence was carried out in front of about 100 people at the Sharia High Court in Terengganu, a conservative state ruled by the Islamist opposition party Pan-Malaysian Islamist Party (PAS), according to a report by English-language daily the New Straits Times.

It was the first conviction for same-sex relations and the first time a caning had been carried out in public in the state, Satiful Bahri Mamat, a member of the Terengganu state executive council told Reuters.

Satiful said the punishment was “not intended to torture or injure”. “The reason it is carried out in public is for it to serve as a lesson to society,” he said.