Malaysia tackles child conversion

[Coventina]

Source: BBC

Malaysia has banned the religious conversion of children without both parents' consent, local media reports.

The announcement by new Prime Minister Najib Razak is being seen as a major step in easing ethnic tensions in the predominately Muslim country.

It follows a string of legal rows in which converts to Islam changed their children's religion despite protests by their estranged non-Muslim spouses.

Malaysia has a two-tier secular and Sharia court system for family matters.

Non-Muslims - who make up about 40% of Malaysia's population - have complained of discrimination, saying the Islamic Sharia courts tend to assert their greater power over minorities when disputes arise.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8014025.stm

[David__77]

1. Seems like a good move.

Hopefully there's an overall change of course of "Islamic jurisprudence" falls by the wayside. There needs to emerge a progressive Islam that defends the secular nature of the state.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Malaysia bans secret conversion of minors

Here is Al Arabiya's coverage of this story:

Thursday, 23 April 2009

Decision follows conversion rows among non-Muslims

Malaysia bans secret conversion of minors

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies)

Malaysia banned the forced conversion of children to Islam to quell unease among religious minorities in the mainly Muslim nation, the country's Legal Affairs Minister said on Thursday.

The decision follows the highly publicized case of Indira Gandhi, a 34-year-old ethnic Indian Hindu woman who faced losing custody of her three children after her estranged husband embraced Islam and then converted their children to the religion.

Cabinet minister Nazri Aziz, part of a high-level team charged with tackling the divisive issue, said the law would be changed so that children's conversions would not be allowed without both parents' consent. Minors were to be bound by the common religion of their parents while they were married even if one parent later becomes a Muslim

"We have to resolve this once and for all. I don't think we should be deciding on a piecemeal basis every time a conversion issue crops up," Nazri said.

"We have decided on a long-term solution because we expect more cases will occur, being a multiracial country," he added.

Islamic law will also apply only from the point of a person's conversion to the religion and is not retrospective, he told a press conference.

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/04/23/71273.html

[Coventina]

3. Interesting that they use the term "multiracial" rather than "multifaith"

I wonder why. Islam is not limited to just one ethnicity. In fact, IIRC, there are more non-Arab Muslims than Arab Muslims.

[ShortnFiery]

4. Perhaps Singapore is now a full Tropical Paradise?

However, when I was living there during the 1964 uprising people were beheaded ... then the skulls were mounted on sticks outside of schools.

People can get "riled up" all over the world. :nuke:

And don't even ask me how I got home from school - other than it involved my older teenage brother kidnapping a taxi cab driver and the ensuing six weeks of Martial Law :scared: