this must be fallout from the trouncing the bigots got in the last election. their policy of "all malaysians must become mohammedans by default", i hope, is faltering.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Swami
Malaysia Woman Scores Rare Legal Win to Quit Islam
By REUTERS
Filed at 2:17 a.m. ET
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian religious court granted a woman's wish
to formally renounce Islam on Thursday, a decision described by her lawyer
as a landmark case that could enable many others to leave the faith.
Islamic courts in the mainly Muslim nation rarely allow Muslims to convert
to other religions. Often, they prescribe counseling or sometimes even fine
them for apostasy.
"It's a landmark case," said lawyer Ahmad Jailani Abdul Ghani, who
represented Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah, 38, in her two-year court battle to
convert back to Buddhism from Islam.
Siti Fatimah, an ethnic Chinese woman formerly known as Tan Ean Huang, had
converted to Islam in 1998 in order to marry her Muslim lover at the time.
In Malaysia, non-Muslims must convert to Islam before they can legally
marry a Muslim.
But Siti Fatimah later broke up with her husband and in 2006 sought to have
her conversion to Islam annulled, Ahmad Jailani said, adding that she had
never practiced as a Muslim and had only adopted Islam in name to ensure
her marriage was recognized.
The lawyer said the ruling was important because it accepted that Muslims
could renounce Islam on the grounds that they had never really practiced
the faith.
"We brought in two witnesses from her family to say that (because of) the
way she prays and way she lives in her house, she is not a Muslim," Ahmad
Jailani said.
Islam is Malaysia's official religion, but a big minority of around 40
percent of Malaysians profess other faiths such as Buddhism, Hinduism and
Christianity.
Islamic affairs are governed at state level, so Thursday's ruling by the
Penang Sharia High Court does not necessarily form a precedent for sharia
courts in Malaysia's 12 other states.
Ahmad Jailani said the Penang state religious council, which had opposed
Siti's renunciation of Islam, had signaled it was likely to appeal the
ruling.
(Reporting by Mark Bendeich; Editing by John Chalmers)
1 comment:
Excerpt from A Hindu Lina Joy, subjected to Islamic “re-education” (06/15/2007)
Revathi was born to Indian parents who had converted to Islam before her birth. She claims she was raised by her grandmother as a Hindu. She and Suresh were married according to Hindu rites in March 2004. Revathi was advised by the Malacca Islamic Religious Department to make an application at the Malacca Syariah High Court to confirm her status as a Hindu. She did as she was told. However, the Syariah Court ordered her detained in a rehabilitation centre in Ulu Yam, Selangor under Melaka's Syariah criminal laws for 100 days. This detention was extended in Revathi's absence for a further 80 days supposedly because she had not "repented". In the meanwhile, Revathi's Muslim mother obtained a Syariah Court order granting her custody of Revathi and Suresh's 15 month old baby. That order was enforced on Suresh's Hindu family with the assistance of the police. The family is now torn apart - with the mother in detention, the child with the grandparents and the father in limbo without his family.
After the Lina Joy case – the Malay women whose conversion to Christianity was not recognised by the Federal Court, who judged it to be an issue for the “Islamic tribunal” – increasing doubts about the existence of freedom of belief and faith in the country. In fact in multi-racial Malaysia two legislations exist: Islamic and Constitutional, and they are often conflicting. For example Constitutional law grants freedom of religion, while Islamic law prohibits conversion from Islam. Organizers of the prayer vigil Revathi, seek to underline that “Federal law supremacy over Sharia needs to be reaffirmed”.
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