Secondly, on Inter-religious relations today and the past 50 years. In the first two decades of nationhood, the government sponsored the establishment of a Inter-Religious Council headed by a Cabinet Minister to promote inter-religious dialogue, understanding and goodwill. Today, a very similar proposal, the Inter-Faith Council, is regarded as highly sensitive and intolerable by the government-of-the day. What has gone wrong?
It is most regrettable that despite six requests in the past nine months, the Prime Minister has refused to meet the Article 11 coalition of 11 civil society groups to uphold the Federal Constitution as the supreme law of the land — or even to give any response.
Why is the Prime Minister who preaches inter-religious dialogue in international conferences adopting such a hostile attitude to Article 11 and domestic inter-religious dialogue?
Non-Muslim concerns about religious freedom as entrenched in Article 11 have been re-ignited by the latest Court of Appeal judgment in the R. Subashini case.
Just like the S. Shamala case in 2004, the Hindu women found they could not seek legal remedy in the civil courts to protect their rights after their husbands converted to Islam and unilaterally converted their children.
While the civil courts told Shamala to seek the Majlis Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan’s help, Subashini was told to gain recourse through the Syariah Appeal Court.
Since Shamala’s case, there had been the M. Moorthy, Nyonya Tahir, Anthony Rayappan and Lina Joy cases, where the court has not provided just remedies to the grievances raised by the plaintiffs on constitutional grounds, causing grave injustices and setting dangerous precedents in subjecting non-Muslims to the laws or Islam.
If Islam Hadhari as espoused by the Prime Minister cannot give justice to non-Muslim Malaysians to uphold the constitutional right to freedom of religion, then Islam Hadhari will not only be seen as irrelevant but detrimental to the constitutional rights and freedoms of non-Muslims — definitely not a desirable way to celebrate Malaysia’s 50th Merdeka anniversary.
I call on the Prime Minister to meet with Article 11 and play a proactive role to allay the cumulative concerns of non-Muslims about their constitutional right to freedom of religion.
[Speech (13) on Royal Address debate in Parliament 22.3.07]