Archive for category Constitution
Marimuthu/Raimah case – foreign media reports
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Human Rights, Religion on Thursday, 3 May 2007
[1] (International Herald Tribune)
In landmark case, Hindu man in Malaysia gets custody of children born to Muslim wife
The Associated Press
Published: May 3, 2007
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Malaysia’s Islamic authorities gave a Hindu man married to a Muslim woman custody of their children Thursday, in a landmark decision for minority rights, after the couple were forcibly separated because they follow different religions.
The decision was announced at an emotional hearing in the High Court attended by the ethnic Indian couple, Marimuthu Periasamy and Raimah Bibi Noordin, both rubber tappers who had been happily married for 21 years.
The case is the latest in a series of conflicts involving the religious rights of minority groups that is straining ties in multiethnic Malaysia, where Islam is the dominant religion. Buddhists, Christians and Hindus are the minority faiths.
The crisis began unexpectedly when Islamic authorities took away Raimah Bibi and six of her seven children on April 2 on the grounds that her marriage with Marimuthu was illegal. It was not clear why the authorities acted now when the couple had been together for 21 years.
At the hearing Tuesday, Raimah Bibi, 39, broke down and sobbed openly when the judge asked her if she will give up custody of their seven children, who are aged between four and 14.
“Yes, I agree to surrender my children to Marimuthu,” she said, wiping her tears with the ends of her headscarf.
Marimuthu had filed an application demanding that the Islamic Affairs Department bring his wife and children to court. The department has indicated the couple cannot live together because Marimuthu did not convert to Islam as required by law for their marriage to be legal. Read the rest of this entry »
Subashini, Revathi, Marimuthu cases – Tunku will be most distressed if he is still alive
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Parliament, Religion on Friday, 20 April 2007
I have today sent an urgent fax to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi asking for a meeting with DAP MPs and leaders on pressing sensitive issues of national unity, religion, family and human rights highlighted by recent heart-rending controversies like the Subashini, Revathi and Marimuthu cases.
There are great and increasing concerns in our plural society about inter-religious tolerance and harmony as illustrated by the recent week-long prayers by Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Taoists to seek divine intervention to spread awareness of the importance of upholding the fundamental provisions of the Malaysian Constitution with regard to Article 11 on freedom of religion and Article 4 on the Constitution as the supreme law of Malaysia.
In a written reply to the DAP MP for Ipoh Barat, M. Kulasegaran on Wednesday, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Nazri Aziz said that the Prime Minister had an open attitude and discussed matters of religion with religious-based non-governmental bodies. It is in this spirit that we are asking for this meeting with the Prime Minister.
Ever since the founding of the nation, Bapa Malaysia and the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, set the example of an open, tolerant and accommodative attitude on religious rights and sensitivities which had spared the multi-religious country from religious conflict, discord and even misunderstanding in the best part of half-a-century of nationhood.
If Tunku Abdul Rahman is still alive, I am sure he will be the first to be very distressed by the spate of heart-rending cases affecting religion which split up families — in the Marimutu case, the couple had been married for 21 years with seven children – apart from causing inter-religious strain and national disunity as well as giving Malaysia a bad name internationally. Read the rest of this entry »
Week-long special prayers by non-Muslims – Cabinet should retrieve and discuss memorandum by nine Ministers
Posted by Kit in Constitution, Religion on Tuesday, 3 April 2007
The Cabinet tomorrow should give serious attention to the week-long special prayers by non-Muslim religions, retrieve the memorandum by nine of ten non-Muslim Ministers in January last year and place on top of its agenda the rising anxieties and fears of non-Muslim Malaysians about their religious rights and sensitivities.
It is a cry of despair and desperation when the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) has to resort to the special prayers campaign to press their plight over their anxieties and fears over growing encroachments of religious freedoms and rights in plural Malaysia, although freedom of religion is entrenched in Article 11 of the Federal Constitution.
It is also a signal that more and more Malaysians are losing hope and confidence in the ability of the courts to play its role as the bulwark of the constitutional freedoms and liberties of Malaysians entrenched in the Constitution.
This is why the MCCBCHST, almost giving up hope in human intervention in the name of justice, fair play and the constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion, is forced to the last resort, in the words of the MCCBCHST president Chee Peck Kiat, of seeking “divine help to to impress upon the leaders of the government and judiciary to uphold the Federal Constitution”.
Chee said: “The only resolution I can think of to the issue is (engaging in) prayers so that the leadership and the judges will be more enlightened (and be moved by their) moral conscience to interpret the Constitution in accordance to what is in it rather than interpreting it according to (their religious beliefs).”
All the Cabinet Ministers should feel thoroughly ashamed of themselves that they have driven the MCCBCHST to seek “divine help” instead of “human intervention” in order to resolve the worsening constitutional crisis over freedom of religion, because of their indifference, neglect or sheer cowardice from addressing and resolving the issues involved. Read the rest of this entry »
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