ICC Note: Hat’s off to Adrian Morgan on a fantastic piece on Malaysia. Great research. We need to get the word out on Malaysia.
Malaysia : The Totalitarian Aspects of a “Moderate” Muslim Regime

It is time for America to re-evaluate Malaysia , which has apparently avoided censure because it is a huge trading partner with the US . But as FSM Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan observes, with no religious freedom and lots of religious persecution, Malaysia resembles Stalin’s Soviet empire.

By Adrian Morgan

4/22/07 Malaysia (Family Security Matters) Malaysia prides itself on its policy of “Islam Hadhari”, or “civilizational Islam” which claims to use Islam to develop culture in the nation, and which should be exported elsewhere. This policy of “moderate” Islam is nothing of the sort. Malaysia in many ways resembles a regime with little difference to Stalin’s Soviet empire.

All ethnic Malays are classified as Muslims, and from the age of 12, all citizens must carry a MyKad, or identity card, which contains details of the person’s religion. Details of the individual’s religious status are kept by the National Registration Department (NRD). Hindus, Buddhists and Christians can convert into Islam, and the NRD respects these decisions, entering them onto the MyKad.

However, the NRD refuses to allow a person who abandons Islam to change their religious status. Each state in Malaysia has a Sharia Court (Syariah Court), and an Islamic authority. The NRD says that only an Islamic court can decide on a person’s religious status. The Islamic Courts have never allowed a living Muslim officially to leave Islam.

There have been famous cases of converts out of Islam, such as Kamariah Ali and Lina Joy. Kamariah Ali joined the “Sky Kingdom Sect” in 1998. She publicly renounced Islam in a Kota Baru Syariah Court in 1999. She was jailed by the Sharia courts in Terengganu state in 2005 for “insulting Islam”. Last year, she was charged under Section 7 of the Syariah Criminal Offence Enactment (Takzir) Terengganu. It is alleged that she declared that she is saying that she is no longer a Muslim only because she is trying to evade punishment from the court for again “insulting” Islam by saying she is no longer a Muslim. Her trial should have been concluded in August 2006, but the state-supporting media has suppressed all news of her case.

The problems that both women have encountered are constitutional. Article 11 of the country’s constitution states that anyone can follow any religion of their choosing, but in 1988, this was undermined. An amendment (1A) was made to Article 121, which stated that the civil courts have no jurisdiction over “any matter” which falls under the jurisdiction of the Islamic Courts.

Even Article 11 of the constitution, which states that a citizen can follow any religion of their choosing, contains a clause which shows that Malaysia has no concept of religious freedom. This clause states: “The law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam.” In August 2006 the church which had baptized Lina Joy was subjected to a police report, for contravening this clause. The church of Our Lady of Fatima , Brickfields, was reported to the authorities by a Muslim. Both Lina Joy and her boyfriend have been issued with death threats by Muslims. The Federal Court has still not come to a decision on her case.

While Muslims are allowed to proselytize and gain converts, many of Malaysia’s 13 states have adopted the ” Control and Restriction of Propagation of non-Muslim Religion (Federal Territories) Bill l999″, 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.”

In March last year, Mohamed Nazri Aziz, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, announced that anyone who criticized Islam and the government’s policies on Islam would be tried under the Sedition Act. This law, a vestige from the British colonial past, can incur a three year jail sentence, as well as a fine of up to 5,000 ringit or $1,350. Aziz said: “I want to remind non-Muslims to refrain from making statements on something they do not understand. We do not want to take away your rights but religion is an important matter, especially to the Muslims.”

In August last year, Aziz stated that the “constitutional law” which bans non-Muslims from spreading their faith should be streamlined across the 13 states in the federation, claiming that “religion is a state matter”. The prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, said in the same month: “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.”

Theoretically non-Muslims can not be targeted under Islamic law, but such niceties are not always followed. Kelantan state is the only state to be controlled by the PAS party. This extreme Islamist group believes that apostates from Islam should be given the death penalty. PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia) gained control of the state in 1990, and has introduced sweeping rulings which affect all citizens. In 1996 the municipal council of the state capital, Kota Baru, ordered that supermarket check-out queues should be gender segregated. Lipstick-wearing was banned in workplaces, and all women were ordered to wear the tudung at work. In 2000, 23 women were given fines for breaching this rule.

Though the US Commission on International Religious Freedom aims to identify countries which abuse rights to religious freedom, Malaysia appears neither on its list of countries of serious concern nor on its watch list. The country is not mentioned on its 2006 Annual Report. Considering the religious restrictions in Malaysia are combined with blatantly racist policies, this is an omission which should cause all Americans some concern. Are “free trade agreements” more important than basic human rights?

Perhaps it is time for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to re-evaluate Malaysia ’s position as a country of “serious concern”. To fail to do so renders its claims to uphold religious freedoms meaningless. Malaysia calls itself a “moderate Muslim nation”. While people can not have freedom of religion in Malaysia , and families are deliberately broken up because of religious laws, then perhaps we should be redefining what “moderate Islam” really means.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He also writes for Spero News. He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.

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