1. Eurasia Review （http://www.eurasiareview.com）
Christians In Malaysia Accept Ruling On Church Raid, 10 November 2011
by Jasmine Kay, Compass Direct News
Following controversy over a raid on a church event in which Muslims were present, Christian leaders in Malaysia welcomed a sultan’s pronouncement that neither the Christians nor the state officers who disrupted the meeting would be prosecuted.
A number of local commentators, however, have continued to express concern over the Aug. 3 raid by the officers of the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS).
The sultan of the state of Selangor, Sharafuddin Idris Shah, issued a statement on Oct. 11 saying the Muslim religious officers did not breach any state laws in the raid on Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC). The sultan came to the conclusion after considering a report prepared by JAIS.
While church leaders welcomed the sultan’s wish for religious harmony and his decree that there will be no prosecution against any parties involved, Dr. Ng Kam Weng, research director at Kairos Research Centre, argued that the powers granted by the state enactments “cannot be taken as license” for Muslim religious authorities to intrude or trespass onto the premises of a church.
Furthermore, Ng said, enforcement must be consistent with fundamental civil liberties and provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code (Act 593) relating to search and arrest. In Malaysia, two sets of laws exist – civil laws that govern all citizens, and Islamic laws that apply to Muslims only in matters of religion, family, property and inheritance.
In the raid, between 20 to 30 JAIS officers and police entered the Dream Centre, a facility rented by DUMC, without a search warrant at 10 p.m. Christians were holding a dinner in gratitude for the efforts of Harapan Komuniti (HK), a community-based Non-Governmental Organization that aids women and children and victims of HIV/AIDS and natural disasters. Present at the dinner were volunteers, leaders, supporters and members of the community who have benefitted from the HK’s work.
Upon entering the premises, JAIS religious officers took videos and photographs. When the dinner organizers asked JAIS officers for the reason for their raid, they said they had received a complaint but were unable to produce a copy when asked for one. The Muslim religious officers also took down details of the Muslim guests before leaving, and the 12 were later asked to give statements at the JAIS office.
The sultan’s ruling asserted that, based on investigations by JAIS, there were attempts made to “subvert the faith and belief of Muslims,” though there was insufficient evidence for legal action to be taken against the perpetrators.
In a country where propagating one’s faith to Muslims is prohibited, Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing questioned the accusation that the church meeting was used to steer Muslims from their religion, as the sultan ruled there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the Christians.
“If there is not enough evidence, there ought to be no imputation of wrongdoing,” the Roman Catholic bishop said.
The sultan commanded JAIS to provide counseling to the 12 Muslims present at the dinner in order to restore their faith and belief in Islam. He also expressed hope that all activities to spread other religions to Muslims in the state should cease immediately.
In Malaysia, the sultan is the head of Islamic affairs in all states where the sultans rule. According to local laws, evangelization of Muslims is an offense punishable by fine and/or imprisonment. Muslims who try to convert out of Islam are also subjected to all kinds of hardships, including having to attend rehabilitation camps.
In his ruling, the sultan claimed that the actions by the Muslim religious officers came within the jurisdiction of the Syariah Criminal Procedure (State of Selangor) Enactment, 2003, Syariah Criminal (State of Selangor) Enactment, 1995 and Selangor Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Amongst Muslims) Enactment, 1988.
Following the church raid and allegations of Christian evangelization of Muslims, some Muslim groups have tried to fan religious tensions. Several right-wing Malay/Muslim groups, including the Pertubuhan Pribumi Perkasa Malaysia (Organization of Strong Indigenous People Malaysia), organized a rally on Oct. 22 at the 100,000-seat Shah Alam Stadium to fight the challenge of Christianization in Malaysia. Only 5,000 people, however, turned up.
More moderate Muslim groups such as the Islamic Renaissance Front have called on Muslims not to blame others but to examine the root causes of apostasy and to consider their own shortcomings.
The church raid incident represents yet another challenge to the local Christian community, which in recent years has had to defend its right to use the word “Allah” in Christian worship and literature as well as protect its right to print and import Malay Bibles and religious literature.
This concern was expressed by Bishop Ng Moon Hing, chairman of the Christian Federation of Malaysia, which represents most Christians in the country.
“We have witnessed an increase in incidences where Christians have been singled out and targeted with unjustified accusations and prejudice from various groups, as well as [from] certain mainline media,” he said in an Aug. 4 statement.
Ng questioned the legality of the raid, describing the Muslim religious officers’ actions as “high-handed and repugnant” and “an affront to the values of mutual respect and harmony.”
The Christian community, which makes up 9.2 percent of Malaysia’s total population of 28.3 million people, expressed alarm and concern over the church raid. The day after the incident, Daniel Ho, senior pastor of DUMC, issued a statement expressing disappointment at the Muslim religious officers’ trespass and actions and at subjecting the dinner guests “to undue harassment.”
n another statement on Aug. 12, Ho clarified his church’s stand on community work.
“In all our community work, we seek to practice our faith and to serve the community … regardless of creed, race or religion,” he stated. “As always, DUMC … seeks to help the poor and the needy with no conditions attached.”
2. Free Malaysia Today (http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com)
Sell one law, get two free?, 10 November 2011
Why are we getting two laws to replace ISA? That’s been the nagging question and bone of contention.
COMMENT
by Kee Thuan Chye
Is the Internal Security Act (ISA) really going to leave us? In name as well as in spirit? Will its body be laid to rest forever and its soul consigned not to purgatory but to hell, where it will be burned to nothingness and never more be resurrected?
Or will the government of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak design the two laws proposed as its replacement such that the repressiveness inherent in the ISA will live on, and the ruling regime can use it to its political advantage?
These are the questions on the minds of Malaysians who have at one time or another spoken out against the ISA or campaigned for its abolition over the years. For no law has had such power in shaping aspects of its people’s personality and the socio-political culture they live in than this law that authorises detention without trial.
Even in recent times, you could hear Malaysians in private conversations lowering their voices and looking over their shoulders whenever they spoke about something that seemed slightly “sensitive” – for fear of being overheard and hauled away by some Special Branch officer who might be hiding behind a potted plant.
Has the situation changed since Najib made the announcement on Sept 15 that the ISA would be repealed?
For now perhaps, because it would look odd if the government hauled anyone in under any circumstances. But what it will be after March 2012, when the repeal of the Act would have been tabled in Parliament together with the proposal of the two new laws replacing it, it’s hard to predict – unless we have some inkling of the substance of the latter two.
But why are we getting two laws to replace one? That’s been the nagging question and bone of contention. Are we being given a bazaar offer – sell one, get two free?
It looks like one of them could be used for preventive detention, which would probably cover so-called “threats to national security”, and the other for anti-terrorism.
If so, these are no different from the terms of the ISA. In which case the fundamental liberties of Malaysians that have been unfairly curbed by the ISA will continue to be curbed.
Will the two new laws give the Home Minister the same absolute powers he enjoys with the ISA? If so, what is there to ensure that he will not brand a political opponent a “terrorist” in order to shut him away? What mechanisms will be built into the two new laws to prevent the abuse of power?
Used as political tool
To be sure, since the ISA’s enactment in 1960, close to 11,000 people have been arrested under it.
Although its original stated purpose was to deter communism, its brief of acting against anyone believed to be a threat to national security is decidedly broad. Not surprisingly, therefore, detainees have included NGO personnel, student leaders, teachers and even theatre artists.
Also a Malay who converted to Christianity, arrested for “disrupting Malay culture by being a Christian”. How does one person’s religious conversion amount to a security threat?
More drastically, in 2002, the then deputy home minister Zainal Abidin Zin even threatened that the law could be used against those who gave a “racial” twist to the new policy of teaching Science and Mathematics in English in schools. This was then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s pet policy, so woe betide anyone who tried to oppose it.
That happened at the height of the culture of fear, generated and intensified during Mahathir’s premiership.
In fact, the most notorious use of the ISA was under his watch, when Operation Lalang made its big swoop on more than a hundred Malaysians in 1987. Many of them were Opposition politicians and social activists who had spoken out against the Government. Operation Lalang remains a black mark for Malaysian democracy because it displayed how mighty the State could be for having a weapon like the ISA.
Apart from that, the decision on an arrest could sometimes be arbitrary, as we saw in the Tan Hoon Cheng case. The Sin Chew Daily journalist was arrested under the Act in September 2008 for no apparent reason.
Just prior to that, she had written a four-paragraph report of a speech made by Penang Umno leader Ahmad Ismail in which he called Chinese Malaysians “penumpang” (tenants). The remark inflamed the Chinese. It bordered on sedition. But who got arrested instead? Irate Malaysians clamoured to know why. What crime had Tan committed in merely reporting what Ahmad Ismail said?
The then home minister, Syed Hamid Albar, came out to face the music. But instead of providing a rational answer, he came up with the most absurd reason. He said Tan’s detention was meant for her own “protection” – because, he declared, her life was “under threat”.
The next day, loan defaulters were begging to be detained – in order to be protected from Ah Longs seeking blood! No wonder the government had to release Tan after only a 20-hour detention, making her the shortest-serving detainee in the history of the ISA!
But, seriously, I have to say there has however been no such happy ending for all the other ISA cases, and I can’t recall another blackly comic instance.
I recall instead the gloom and severity of watching the eminent journalist A Samad Ismail ‘confess’ on public television in 1976, three months after his arrest, that he was a communist. After that, he was detained for another four years.
In 1981, he made a second ‘confession’ on television to attest that he had recanted. His deadpan expression and the way he merely mouthed the words without meaning what he said showed his innate resistance to the staged event. He would have known that acting as he did, astute viewers would see through the absurdist drama that was being played out. The words he seemingly read out looked like they were prepared by someone else.
It later became public knowledge that the man who orchestrated Samad’s arrest and subsequent ‘confessions’ was none other than the then home minister, Ghazali Shafie, and that Samad had been coerced into making those appearances.
Ghazali’s use of the ISA to consolidate his power reinforced the belief that the law was increasingly being used against political opponents. Mahathir’s was publicly perceived as doing that as well as silencing the citizenry.
Public must stand firm
The original purpose of deterring communism has long been lost sight of. In any case, communism in Malaysia is virtually dead.
On that score, the ISA has gone way past its use-by date. Besides, we have ample provisions in our penal laws that can be upgraded to take care of terrorism.
Before Zaid Ibrahim resigned as de facto law minister in 2008, he and his colleagues were already studying ways to address that through amending the Criminal Procedure Code and the Penal Code.
In fact, the idea of having two new laws is suspect. It cannot bode well for Malaysian democracy that in this day and age of increasing demands for civil liberties, our government is considering implementing more controls. Even if it’s in the name of “safeguarding peace and public order”.
Detention without trial cannot be justified, and certainly not for an initial period of 60 days as is the case under the ISA. Even 14 days, the period allowed by detention laws in Australia and the United Kingdom, is too long.
The ISA also allows for the detention to be extended to two years at the pleasure of the home minister, renewable after that for an indefinite number of terms. This is inhumane and cannot be allowed any more. How did we allow that to go on for 51 years?
The ISA must go. Detention without trial must go. Everyone must have a right to be proven guilty before he or she is put away.
Between now and March 2012, it is not too late for the public to call on the government to reconsider its proposal to introduce the two new laws. One law is bad enough. Two is doubly bad.
Malaysians have fought hard to get the ISA repealed. Many have risked arrest to demonstrate against it. On Aug 1, 2009, alone, about 15,000 took to the streets in Kuala Lumpur to call for the law’s repeal, and nearly 600 were arrested.
We have come this far to break the culture of fear. We must not regress. We must not let down the people who have struggled for our freedom, and allow the government to deceive us.
If the government cannot give us our fundamental right and our fundamental freedom, then it has no right to be our government.
Dramatist and journalist Kee Thuan Chye is the author of ‘March 8: Time for Real Change‘. This article first appeared in the November 2011 issue of the Penang Economic Monthly.
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