Anwar acts on youth's conversion, not Prasana's return By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy

Malaysiakini : “They are not seen as a custom issue; they are seen as a religious issue. Indira’s case is not going to be the last. There are going to be more.”

- Former law minister Zaid Ibrahim

COMMENT | Let me be very clear. M Indira Gandhi’s case, like many others, is a form of religious kidnapping.

In 2014, when the case of S Deepa first saw light, former law minister and US ambassador Nazri Aziz said this of the police’s ”mistaken assumption” for not retrieving the kidnapped child:

“It is a civil law marriage; it is the civil court, (and) we must respect the civil court’s ruling. They have the jurisdiction. The High Court judge’s ruling was correct. The police shouldn’t allow him to get away with kidnapping the child.”

Proponents of unilateral conversion have relied on the theme of religious and racial supremacy in support of this agenda and have twisted the Constitution of this country and played up racial and religious sentiments to bolster their arguments.

Nazri Aziz

They have relied on the state security apparatus (which is supposed to be secular) to enforce their will, contrary to the rulings of civil courts, and have had the overt approval of the “social contract” ruling class to carry out this agenda, all while promoting the idea of a “moderate” Islam.

When you convert a child unilaterally to Islam, you are denying that child the right to choose his or her religion. Faith by fiat is what I call it, with the onerous obligation that comes with a state-sanctioned religion.

Nazri, one of the few ministers who attempted to reform this aspect of the law, said this in 2022: “As a Muslim, I am not proud of this. For me, Islam is about being fair. And it’s not fair if one of the parents changes the religion of their child without the other parent’s permission. Don’t do to others what you don’t want others to do to you.”

Madani, of course, is the worst of all the administrations that have passed the buck on this case for the simple reason that this is a government, albeit a unity government, made up of political operatives who have used this mother when it suited their purposes and abandoned her once in power. 

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim witnessing the conversion of a youth in Klang, Selangor, August 2023

Headhunter : This clearly isn’t just about religious fanatics running wild, but rather a definite case of institutional involvement, albeit in a covert manner.

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