Source: The American Muslim
Since 2006 Malaysia has been rocked by a number of hugely controversial
cases involving the fundamental right of belief and freedom of religion.
Between 2005 to 2006 the country was a virtual battleground with opposing
factions claiming the right for Malaysian citizens to believe according to
their will and rational agency, and a number of legal experts and NGOs have
come forth demanding that the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi
defend the secular constitution of the country.
At the root of the matter is the the problem that arises with having two
different, and some would say irreconcilable, legal systems: A secular civil
code for non-Muslims and a religious one for Muslims. Furthermore Malaysia
is unique in the sense that it is one of the few countries in the world that
defines the racial identity of some of its citizens with their religion of
birth. According to the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, all Malays are by
definition Muslims. (Which stands in stark contrast to Indonesia next door
where being a local Indonesian does not necessarily mean that one is
immediately a Muslim, as there are millions of Christian and Hindu
Indonesians as well)
What has compounded matters are a series of divorce and marriage cases
across the racial and religious divide. Since 2005 a number of prominent
court cases have come to the fore where Muslims married to non-Muslims have
been told that their cases have to be settled in Muslim courts. There have
also been cases where non-Muslim couples have decided to divorce when one
partner decides to marry marry a Muslim instead. In these cases it is again
the Muslim court that decides the fate of both partners, and their children,
by virtue of the fact that one of them is now a Muslim.
The latest case to be thrown into the fray is that of Revathi Masoosai, who
was born to a Muslim family but brought up as a Hindu by her Hindu
Grandmother. Revathi married a Hindu man and lived as a Hindu until she gave
birth to their first child. Recently the Islamic authorities in the state of
Melacca took away her child on the grounds that she was illegally practicing
Hinduism, despite her claim that she has been a practising Hindu thanks to
the religious education she received from her grandmother. Revathi’s child
is now in the custody of her Muslim relatives while she herself has been
sent to a ‘faith rehabilitation centre’ in order to recant and delcare
herself a Muslim once again. Even then she would be left with the problem of
her marriage to a Hindu man.