Speakers at the talk, organised by the Malaysian Ahmadiyah community, argued that minority religions were being made victims in the battle for the Malay Muslim vote between the country’s largest Muslim parties, Umno and PAS.
Source/Credit: The Malaysian Insider
By Sheridan Mahavera | March 28, 2014
Politicians, from Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat, have failed to protect the freedom of worship for all religions and it is now up to the ordinary citizen to stand up.
At the same time, faith groups must band together to push the government for a formal mechanism to protect that freedom and to which people can seek help when that freedom is violated, an interfaith symposium concluded last night.
This was the take-away from a forum organised by a Muslim group which brought together Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and other faiths to heal rifts that have opened up in a climate of heightened religious tension.
The symposium was held just hours after an 81-year-old Muslim scholar and activist was hauled to court by the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) and Department of Islamic Development Malaysia on charges he had insulted Islam and disobeyed a fatwa (religious decree).
Speakers at the talk, organised by the Malaysian Ahmadiyah community, argued that minority religions were being made victims in the battle for the Malay Muslim vote between the country’s largest Muslim parties, Umno and PAS.
Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa of the Islamic Renaissance Front argued that this battle had spawned small but vocal extremist groups which were emboldened to go around and agitate non-Muslims.
“The Pakatan Rakyat leadership’s failure to stand up for religious minority rights makes them seem the same as the narrow ethnocentrism espoused by Umno,” said Farouk.
Farouk based his argument on how the Selangor Pakatan Rakyat government took six days to respond to the raid and seizure of 300 Bibles from the Bible Society of Malaysia in Petaling Jaya by the state Islamic Religious Department.
“And when the so-called prime minister-in-waiting gave a statement, he pushed the ball back into Najib’s (Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak) court,” Farouk said referring to a comment made by Pakatan Rakyat leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on the raid.
The BSM raid and the Catholic weekly Herald's continuing court case are the latest incidents in the row over the use of the word “Allah” in Malaysia.
The dispute has heightened tension as it is being framed by Malay supremacists as a battle between the Malay Muslims and Christians.
This is while Malaysian religious authorities have been criticised by Muslim scholars worldwide for wanting to ban non-Muslims from using the term, which is Arabic for God.
Eminent Muslim scholars have stated that the term is not exclusive to Muslims while Malaysian Christians have claimed that it has been used by the community for more than a century.
The Malaysian ban originates from a 1986 religious decree from the National Fatwa Council. A few years later, almost all states in the peninsula passed laws banning its use among non-Muslims.
“Umno wants to position itself as the custodian of Islam and it is doing this by banning the word ‘Allah’ from being used by non-Muslims,” said Farouk.
For Institute for Policy Research head Khalid Jaafar, how the religious agencies have acted such as by seizing Bibles and taking activists to court showed they had been taken over by religious fascists.
“Unless these fascists are challenged, minority groups will feel themselves excluded from mainstream society.
“We need a public institution that looks after minority religious groups. What we have today is a body that looks after Muslims but we need one to look after non-Muslims as well.
“(It should be) a place where they can go to when their rights are violated,” said Khalid.
His call was echoed by law professor Dr Azmi Sharom who argued that the Constitution clearly laid down the right for freedom of worship for all in Article 11.
This provision was qualified by a clause against propagating to Muslims but the fundamental freedom for worship for non-Muslims was there, he said.
“The right is there. But whether that right is respected is a different matter. But you can’t just leave it to politicians to stand up for justice and human rights.
“And if we let oppression go unchecked, it will embolden the oppressors.”
– March 28, 2014.
Read original post here: Malaysia: Politicians have failed religious minorities, so ordinary folk must stand up, says Muslim group
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