Malay Muslim loses appeal to be Christian

MALAY MUSLIM LOSES APPEAL TO BE CHRISTIAN:
Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia’s top secular court yesterday rejected a Muslim convert’s appeal to the recognised as a Christian, in a landmark case that tested the limits of religious freedom in the moderate Islamic country.
Judges in the Federal Court ruled by a 2-1 majority that only a sharia court has the power to allow Azlina Jailani, who changed her name to Lina Joy after becoming a Christian, to remove the word “Islam”from the religion category on her government identity card.
Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim said the panal endorsed legal judgements stating that the sharia court-not the civil legal system-has the jurisdiction to hear cases of Muslims who want to renounce Islam.
“This appeal is rejected,” he said, “Apostasy is a matter linked to Islamic laws.
It’s under the jurisdiction of the sharia court. lCivil courts cannot interfere.”
Activists have warned that a ruling against Ms Joy could strengthen non-Muslim fears that they are being discriminated against in Muslim - majority Malaysia, which has substantial Christian, Buddist, and Hindu minorities.
However, conservative Muslims would have considered a ruling for here as an erosion of Islamic values.
Ms Joy was not at the hearing yesterday.
Judge Richard Malanjum was the only one on the panel who sided with her, saying it was “unreasonable,” to ask her to turn to a sharia corut because she could face criminal prosecution there. Apostasy is punishable by fines and jail sentences. Offenders are often sent to rehabilitation.
Ms Joy’s case is the most prominent in a recent series of religious desputes, some involving custody of children born to parents of different faiths, and one involving a deceased Hindu man who converted to Islam without his family’s knowledge and whom Islamic authorities had buried as a Muslim.
The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to all citizens, suggesting it is a secular state. But sharia courts have not allowed Muslims, who comprise nearly 60 per cent of the country’s 26 million people, to leave their religion.
Personal and family rights of Malaysian Muslims are decided by sharia court. Civil courts govern such matters for minority religions.
Ms Joy, 42, argued she should not be bound by sharia laws because she was no long a Muslim. The began going to a Christian Church in 1990 and was baptised eight years later. She applied to change her name on her identity card and the National Registration Department obliged but refused to drop ‘Islam” from the religious column.
In May 2000, Ms Joy went to the High Court, which told her she should take it up with the sharia courts. She challenged the decision in the Court of Appeal but lost and took it to the Federal Court in 2005.