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September 1, 2006

Malaysia: A Model of Muslim Tyranny

Yesterday, with fireworks displays in Kuching, Sarawak, the nation of Malaysia officially celebrated merdeka, the nation's "birthday". August 31 was the 49th anniversary of independence from British rule.

But behind the facade of fireworks, super-bike displays and general self-satisfaction, the real truth of Malaysia's descent into an intolerance never experienced under British rule remains like a shameful scar which the government does not want even its own people to see. Malaysia, which boasts proudly that it is a "moderate Muslim country" is nothing of the sort. It enforces Islam in a racially-based apartheid which ensures that no ethnic Malay can avoid being labelled as a Muslim from the age of 12 onwards, and refuses to allow Muslims to convert to other faiths. And while Muslims are allowed to convert others, the government is pressuring all 13 states in the nation to enforce laws preventing anyone from attempting to convert a Muslim.

Many of Malaysia's states have adopted the Control and Restriction Bill, which gives a fine of 10,000 ringit ($2,653) or imprisonment for up to one year for "persuading, influencing a Muslim to leave Islam for another religion."

Barely a week ago, the irascible Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Mohamed Nazri Aziz (pictured left), ordered on August 23 that the "constitutional law" which forbids others to spread religions other than Islam to the Muslims must be streamlined nationwide.

Aziz said the states of Sarawak, Sabah, Federal Territory and Penang had not yet adopted the legislation. He stated according to Bernama: "There is no reason for these states to delay adopting the law. The Federal Constitution must be fully adhered to but religion is a state matter which is under the purview of the respective state governments. Therefore, to enforce the Federal Constitution on religion would require all the government of the states to amend their constitutions and adopt the law first."

He claimed that the Federal Constitution was very clear on religion, when in fact it is as clear as congealed mud. He asked rhetorically: ""Why (do we have) to interpret (the constitution) when it is clearly said that (non-Muslims) are not allowed to spread religions other than Islam to the Muslims?"

We reported on March 21 that Nazri Aziz said that anyone who criticised Islam would be tried under the Sedition Act, a legacy of British colonial rule, which existed in Malaysia before its independence in 1957. The penalty for transgressing against the Sedition Act can be three years in prison, with an additional fine of up to 5,000 ringit or $1,350.

The mainly UMNO-led government, ruling under the "Barisan Nasional" coalition, also includes Hindus of the MIC, the Malaysia Indian Congress, which has been in existence since 1946, and also MCA, the Malaysian Chinese Association, which has been the second largest partner in the Barisan Nasional coalition since 1996. There are ten other smaller parties in the Barisan Nasional, whose name means "National Front".

But the rights of Hindus and Buddhists from MIC and MCA are not clearly defined under Malaysia's bizarre "federal constitution". The constitution states that Islam is a Muslim nation, but according to Article 3(1) of the constitution, "other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation." Article 11 of the constitution states that a citizen can follow any religion of their choosing.

However, this is directly contradicted by Article 121 (1A), which was introduced in 1988. This states that civil courts have no jurisdiction over "any matter" which falls under the jurisdiction of the Islamic Courts.

On August 26, the hypocritical prime minister joined in with demanding that no-one can even discuss the contradictory aspects of the constitution. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who also functions as Minister of Internal Security, said: "My advice to everyone is to stop (raising such issues). Do not create a situation that can lead to difficulties. Difficulties will make everyone apprehensive."

He continued: "Adhering to the articles will not create any problem. Discussing these articles again.... this will cause a storm if left unchecked. I have stated that there is no necessity to amend Article 121 ... there is no necessity to amend Article 11. These cause problems between one side and the other."

Badawi spoke of people such as the eleven member groups of the multi-faith organisation Article Eleven Forums whom we discussed on July 23, who "ask questions" about the constitution. He said: "They relate to matters sensitive to religion. Even in the developed countries such as the United States, there is sensitivity in matters related to religion and race'.

Since Malaysia became the legislative center of the 51-nation Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), the country has slipped further towards Islamic dictatorship - a tyranny like nothing that was imposed on its people under British colonial rule.

And presiding over the demise of basic religious freedoms, the country's prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi pretends to the world that he supports democracy, while denying people their right to choose their own religion. Article 18 of the Declaration of Human Rights states: ""Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

Malaysia did not sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when most other Muslim nations did so in 1948, as it had not yet come into being. But as a member of the United Nations, it still has an obligation to uphold the principles. As with most other Muslim countries, the chances of Malaysia supporting human rights are about as likely as strawberries growing on apple trees.

We have trodden the same ground several times on Western Resistance, documenting the abuses of Malaysian Hindus, Buddhists and Christians alike, as temples, some a century old, and churches are bulldozed, for spurious reasons, such as not having planning documents. In the case of the oldest Hindu temples, such planning documents were never issued 100 years ago, and were not issued by the Malaysian state because it simply did not exist then.

When the 100-year old Malaimel Sri Selva Kaliam-man Temple in Kuala Lumpur was bulldozed on April 18 no prior warning had been given. A Hindu service was going on inside when police and bulldozers ordered worshippers to leave.

Despite his dishonest pose as a "moderate", prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (pictured right) is no such thing. He is head of the UMNO party (United Malays National Organisation), which has ruled uninterrupted in a coalition with other parties since August 31, 1957, Malaysia's Independence. UMNO advocates the racially divisive policy of "ketuanan Melayu" a belief system in which Malays are regarded as the original defining populace of Malaysia, and should have special treatment and privileges.

When it comes to matters of abandoning Islam, no Malaysian, ethnic Malay or otherwise, has any privileges at all. As soon as a person reaches the age of 12, they are issued with an identity card, or MyKad. On this card are recorded one's details, including religion, which are registered with the National Registration Department. And all ethnic Malays are automatically designated as "Muslim". Once registered as a Muslim, only an appeal from Malaysia's Syariah (Sharia) courts can allow a person to claim to have another faith.

And so far, the Sharia courts, which exist in every state and have the powers to send people to prison or to "religious rehabilitation camps" have never granted such a privilege to any living person. The only person ever to allowed to apostasise freely was an 89 year old Buddhist woman, Nyonya Tahir (pictured) who had appealed to the NRD repeatedly to have her designation as "Muslim" removed from her MyKad. Mrs Tahir was only granted this privilege after she had died.

Nyonya Tahir died on Thursday 19 January this year. She had married a Chinese man in 1936, and adopted Buddhism. Following her death, the Sharia courts prevented her from being buried, and held an inquisition. For the first time in recorded history, the inquisition heard evidence in court from two of Nyonya's children, who were Buddhist like their mother. Finally, on January 23, the Sharia court allowed Mrs Tahir to be buried as a Buddhist, allowing her to become the first person ever allowed the right of apostasy, even though Nyonya could not appreciate it by then.

The decision to allow Nyonya to buried as a Buddhist was seized upon by unscrupulous Muslims to present the decision as a mark of harmony and pluralism. Muhamad Burok, president of the Malaysian Syariah Lawyers Association stated: "It shows that our two court systems - the Civil Court and Syariah Court - can exist in harmony, so the issue that the Constitution should be amended does not arise. The decision shows that everyone can get protection from all the courts."

Burok, like many of Malaysia's Muslim representatives, was lying. The only reason the Syariah Courts allowed Nyonya to be buried as a Buddhist was to make up for all the international condemnation heaped upon the nation for the scandal of Lieutenant-Corporal Moorthy, a Hindu who had been a national hero for scaling Mount Everest.

A month before the decision was taken upon Nyonya Tahir, a callous decision by the Syariah Courts led to the national hero being buried as a Muslim, against the protests of his widow Kaliammal, who denied that her husband had ever left his Hindu faith. Moorthy was buried on December 28 2005. His widow had tried one desperate measure to appeal to the High Court, but because of Article 121 (A) of the Federal Constitution, Justice Mohammed Raus Sharif told Kaliammal Moorthy that he had no power to intervene over matters of apostasy.

Lieutenant Corporal Moorthy had been a victim of illness which had turned him from a fit mountaineer in the army, to a person confined to a wheelchair. When he fell out of his wheelchair and went into a coma, Islamist "friends" told the national Islamic Affairs Committee that Moorthy had converted to Islam. This was seized upon by the Sharia authorities, and when Justice Sharif said that he could not rule on the matter, the Islamist authorities took the body away, and buried it in a Muslim ceremony. Distraught Kaliammal (pictured) could not bring herself to attend the funeral. She had maintained that her husband had eaten pork, attended Hindu festivals, and would never have become a Muslim. Her lawyer said: "She says...anybody can take the body, but her husband's soul is still with us."

On January 3 the deputy prime minister, Najib Tun Razak, visited Kaliammal and informed her that she would get all her widow's benefits, at a higher rate because her husband had been posthumously promoted to the position of Sergeant. The action was a sign that the government acknowledged that the Islamic authorities had gone too far.

On January 15 the government announced that Muslim and non-Muslim alike would have redress under the law. Deputy Prime Minister Razak said: "Our principle, in future cases, is to give redress to all parties involved. The Prime Minister's Department is looking into this and we are doing something that can satisfy all and which does not threaten the administration of Islamic law." Since then, the government has been complicit in the further Islamification of Malaysia.

On December 31, only three days after he had declared himself impotent to intervene on behalf of Kaliammal Moorthy, Justice Mohammed Raus Sharif again said he had no powers to rule on another case of "apostasy" that of 54-year old Kamariah Ali and 63-year old Daud Mamat. These had been members of the Sky Kingdom Sect, founded by the charismatic Ayah Pin (aka Ariffin Mohamad).

We reported on June 21 on Kamariah Ali's trial before a Syariah Court. A native of Kelantan state, Kamariah was formerly a scholar of Islam, who attended the Al-Azhar Muslim University in Cairo. She was sent to jail by the Sharia courts in Terengganu state in 2005 for "insulting Islam". Her husband, Mohammed Ya, had also been a follower of the Sky Kingdom Sect. He had been imprisoned for two years for "insulting Islam" by an Islamic court in Terengganu state, for his attempts to apostasize. Mohammed Ya died shortly after his release from jail. Upon his death, the Muslim courts who refused his right to leave Islam also refused his right to be buried in a Muslim graveyard. He was finally buried in the compound of the Sky Kingdom Sect.

Kamariah Ali publicly renounced Islam in 1999 in a Kota Baru Syariah Court, seven years ago. Mustafar Hamzah, chief prosecutor for the Syariah High Court said that the onus was upon Kamariah herself to prove that she had left Islam. She is charged under Section 7 of the Syariah Criminal Offence Enactment (Takzir) Terengganu. It is alleged that she only declared that she is saying that she is no longer a Muslim because she is trying to evade punishment. The judge, Mohamad Abdullah, gave a date of August 20 to decide whether Kamariah Ali should enter her defense arguments. Since then, I have been scouring news archives, and nothing is available. The case of Kamariah Ali is being suppressed in the media, for fear it should cast a shadow on the merdeka celebrations.

Another potentially embarrassing case to the government is that of Christian convert Lina Joy. As in the case of Kamariah Ali, a decision to allow her to become an apostate from Islam could have devastating consequences for the supremacy of Islamist principle in Malaysia. She has been thwarted so many times in her attempts to leave Islam that she has taken her case to the Federal Court, the highest court in the nation. The case began in early July.

In 1998, the National Registration Department granted her the right to change the name on her MyKad from her Muslim birth-name, Azlina Jailani, to her Christian name, Lina Joy. But the NRD refuses to allow her to change her status from "Muslim" to "Christian", as this must first be authorised by the Islamic courts. And despite almost a decade of petitioning the Syariah courts, Lina Joy has never been allowed to "apostasise". As Ms Joy has a boyfriend, who is a Christian, whom she wishes to marry, she has good reason to want to have the NRD's decision on her religious status revoked. Under Malaysia's fascistic Syariah laws, a Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a Christian.

As with the case of Kamariah Ali, no decision on her case is forthcoming. On August 23, little over a week before the self-congratulatory merkeda celebrations, Chief Justice Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim of the Federal Court announced that the court needed more time to consider the submissions in the case, thereby stalling the ruling which has been expected for some time.

He said: "Coming soon (the decision) we have to have some time. We cannot rush this thing. You must also remember that there were three judges who heard the appeal."

43-year old Lina Joy has been through countless court appearances. On April 23, 2001,the High Court had ruled that being a Muslim, Lina, could not renounce Islam and that the issue should be decided by the Syariah Court. On September 19 last year, her submission to the Court of Appeal was turned down by a 2-1 verdict. It was then ruled that her renunciation of Islam was not confirmed by the Syariah Court or any other Islamic religious authority.

Even though the decision on Lina Joy's case is being delayed unnaturally, this has not stopped Muslim fascists from acting to punish her church. The day after the Federal Court announced its decision, Asia News reported that the church of Our Lady of Fatima, in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, where Lina Joy had been baptised, had been the subject of a police report. A Muslim fascist called Taib Hisham had claimed that her baptism had contravened part of the controversial Article 11 of the constitution, which states: "The law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam."

Lina Joy's lawyer, Benjamin Dawson has said that Lina has been subjected to death threats because of her desire to apostasise. Her fiance has also been threatened with death by Muslim fascists.

The actions against Lina's church were supported by the youth wing of the Islamist party PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia). PAS was founded in 1955, and aims to have the entire nation under Sharia law. Though it has lost many seats in local states, it still wields power in the state of Kelantan. Here, as we reported on June 29, the party encourages Muslims to convert the indigenous peoples known as "Orang Asli", who practice shamanism and animism. As incentives to convert these non-Muslims, PAS is offering financial rewards, drawn from tax-payers' money. The existence of these people, who lived on the land from long before Muslims arrived in the 13th century, contradicts the ideology of "ketuanan Melayu".

But Lina Joy and Kamariah Ali are not the only individuals to fall foul of the intransigent fascism of Malaysia's Muslims.

The International Herald Tribune states that Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a Muslim lawyer, who is from the Article Eleven Forums, has also received death theats. 36-year old Malik received a note stating: "This is the face of the traitorous lawyer to Islam who supports the Lina Joy apostasy case. Distribute to our friends so they can recognize this traitor. If you find him dead by the side of the road, do not help."

Malik stated: "We must not confuse the crucial distinction between a country in which the majority are Muslims, and is thus an Islamic country, and a country in which the supreme law is the Shariah, an Islamic state."

IHT quoted one 38-year old male convert from Islam to Christianity, who does not wish his full name to be revealed, who said: "Church members know us as who we are, and the outside world knows us as we were." His church is surrounded by rings of barbed wire, and it has to move from place to place, to avoid the recriminations from fanatical Muslim fascists.

A Muslim cleric, Harussani Zakaria, told AKI: "Whatever the court decision (on Lina Joy), the people must have respect for each other. This case has shown that people do not understand the Constitution. What they are claiming in court as her right to choose her faith is not applicable because she was born a Malay-Muslim."

Today's Melbourne Age reports that the British Cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, currently in Australia, has said it is vital for Muslims to speak up for the rights of minority faiths in Muslim states. He said: "Where Christians are being denied their rights or are subject to sharia law, that is not a matter on which Muslims in Britain or in Australia should remain silent. Where religious rights of minorities are disrespected in the name of Islam, the face of Islam is tarnished elsewhere in the world."

In the case of Malaysia, such notions are pointless. Malaysia lies to the entire world, and to its own people, that it is a moderate and tolerant Muslim nation. History has proved that there never has been such a thing as a moderate or tolerant Muslim nation.

Yesterday in Sarawak, Malaysia congratulated itself on its independence from British rule, from a colonial administration which allowed people greater religious liberties 49 years ago than are allowed today in "modern" Malaysia. The celebration is called merdeka. It is perhaps more than a coincidence that this word sounds so close to the French word merde, which means "s**t".

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at September 1, 2006 5:25 AM

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