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Badawi to look into grievances of non-Muslims

P. S. Suryanarayana

Ministers submit memorandum to Premier

SINGAPORE: Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has indicated his willingness to address the sensitive issue of the rights of non-Muslims, even as Ministers representing them have withdrawn a memorandum on this issue.

Mr. Badawi said the Ministers were free to raise any issue, however sensitive, for discussion within the Cabinet. The obvious hint was that the religion issue in Muslim majority Malaysia was better not discussed in the public domain.

Snowballing controversy

After the non-Muslim Ministers met the Prime Minister and withdrew the memorandum which they had submitted to him, he expressed satisfaction that the snowballing controversy over their action could now be treated as a "closed chapter". He also advised political parties and leaders to "stop harping" on the impropriety of their action in presenting a memorandum.

The non-Muslim Ministers, particularly Ong Ka Ting representing the ethnic Chinese and S. Samy Vellu representing the people of Indian origin, later reaffirmed their faith, which (as they indicated) was never in doubt in any case, in the Prime Minister's wisdom to find a solution to the issues at stake.

The main theme of the memorandum was a plea for the "review" of laws affecting the rights of non-Muslims in the specific context of some recent developments. These related to the relative jurisdictions of the civil courts and the Syariah (Sharia as spelt locally) judicial forums on issues concerning conversion as Muslims.

Following the death of Muhammad Abdullah, who was earlier known as M. Moorthy and was a Hindu, a civil court declined to adjudicate on the issue of his religious faith at the time of his demise, although his wife contended that he had remained a Hindu. The Syariah High Court ruled a day later that he had indeed adopted Islam as his religion.

Seeking to articulate the mood among the minorities over this issue, Ministers representing the ethnic Chinese and the Indian-origin people took the unprecedented step of presenting a memorandum to the Prime Minister. The constitutional issue at stake is the interpretation of Article 121 (1a) so that the issue of judicial say over religious matters could be settled.

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