GEORGE TOWN – The ongoing religious conversion saga involving Penang mother Loh Siew Hong and her three children will become a constitutional wrangle as Perlis laws will clash with a Federal Court landmark decision.
Penang Deputy Chief Minister II P. Ramasamy said the apex court ruled in 2018 that for any religious conversion of minors (below the age of 18), consent is needed from both parents.
“This case is about a family. A (biological) mother’s wish to be reunited with her children. The earlier arguments that she went missing is now clarified. She was being treated at a centre due to the fallout from an abusive marriage,” he told The Vibes.
He later issued a statement on the matter, reiterating that religious conversion in Malaysia is not a zero-sum game.
“Such an act must be based on the law, rights of children and parents.
“It is now a question of law, whether the children can be converted to Islam just because they wanted to or they were coached,” he claimed.
“They might have agreed to become Muslims, but the law looks at the matter differently. The law says that children cannot be converted without the consent of both parents. In Loh’s case, only the father consented.”
Meanwhile, DAP colleague and Klang MP Charles Santiago said the Perlis Religious Department is in violation of a Federal Court decision on unilateral conversions.
“The Perlis mufti wouldn’t have come forth if Loh didn’t send a letter of demand for proof that she consented to the conversion. He is also culpable for ignoring the Federal Court’s orders.
“Why should we believe that the kids aren’t under coercion or duress? Who is Asri (the Perlis mufti) to take the law into his hands? Why is he the ‘spokesperson’?
“The unilateral conversion cannot stand and it’s a violation of the Federal Court order,” he said.
Perlis mufti Datuk Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin has again taken to his Facebook page yesterday to lambast critics over the conversion of the children.
He said this is because Perlis Islamic laws do not need both parents to agree to the conversion as it can be done solely by either the father, mother or a legal guardian.
“DAP and the ‘LTTE’ extremists said there is a breach of the law because the conversion to Islam happened without the mother’s consent.
“I want to tell them that in 2016, the Perlis state assembly amended the law mentioning ‘both the mother and father’ to ‘either the mother or father’. Any lawyer can refer to this (amendment). In terms of the law in Perlis, there is no breach.”
He also uploaded an Instagram video days ago showing that two of the children had apparently converted. The other child, a 10-year-old boy, was not seen in the video.
In the brief video, he was seen having a solemn chat with the two daughters aged 14, with the brief conversation centred on their alleged conversion to Islam. The two teenage girls were clad in an attire associated with Muslim women, although the audio was unclear.
Before Loh’s divorce was finalised, her now ex-husband Nagahswaran Muniandy had allegedly unilaterally converted their three children to Islam in Perlis.
He was later arrested and convicted for a drug-related offence and is now serving jail time in Kelantan. He might be released in November.
Meanwhile, Loh applied for custody and was awarded by the Kuala Lumpur High Court in March 2021.
At her recent brief reunion with her children, she was told that they wish to remain Muslims.
Under such circumstances, Loh agreed that she would take custody once her application for habeas corpus was heard in the Kuala Lumpur high court on Monday.
The Federal Court in M. Indira Gandhi’s case had ruled in her favour and that unilateral religious conversions were unconstitutional.
However, her ex-husband had kidnapped her youngest daughter and remained at large despite her constant pleas to the authorities to see to her return. – The Vibes, February 18, 2022
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