The Islamoholic is relieved that the saga is now officially over and that Lina Joy cannot take her issue to the Civil courts. She has to take it to the Syariah courts if she wants to expunge her religion from her identity card.
Malaysiakini reports:
Lina Joy’s long wait for her conversion to Christianity to be recognised by law is over - the Federal Court ruled today that she remains a Muslim and her religious status will not be removed from her identity card.
Delivering the judgment to a packed gallery this morning in Putrajaya, Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim ruled that jurisdiction remains with the Syariah court.
The chief justice stated that he concurred with the majority decision - Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff who was the last to read his judgment agreed with Ahmad Fairuz’s findings.
Justice Richard Malanjun gave a dissenting judgment.
The case hinged on a decision by the National Registration Department not to remove the word ‘Islam’ from Lina’s MyKad.
The department said it needed a syariah court order certifying her renouncement from Islam before it could make the change.
It is a landmark decision as it is clear now that matters concerning Islam lies solely within the discretion of the Syariah courts. That is the reality of the dual legal system which Malaysia is currently implementing. She can still find recourse through the Syariah courts but by doing so, she will be giving tacit approval to the Syariah legal system to determine her religious status, something which The Islamoholic feels that her pack of Islamophobic/Islam Liberal lawyers would be reluctant to do.
In any case, The Islamoholic sees this decision as a defeat for secularism and the secularist project, and a thwarting of the Islam Liberal agenda (they have just been given a bloody nose). Its now 1 - 0 in the favour of Islam.
Too bad, liberals!
May 30th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
so now what? aren’t u guys supposed to stone her to death? do it la…no balls? oh i know, this is a secular nation, ur law means crap here.
May 30th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
It’s really sad for islam & moslems as a whole. It now tells the world that in Malaysia:
a) It’s better to have disbelievers in islam rather than letting converts get out of this religion
b) Islam as a whole is unforgiving & harsh
I wondered how many moslems are really “fake believers of Islam, i.e. being coerced to be “fake” moslems. Maybe the gov’t should conduct an impartial research on this subject.
This whole incidence makes a MOCKERY of Islam!!
May 30th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Well, it was always going to be the case due to the uproar that the reverse decision would have caused. It’s really a win for the ISA policy makers, so it should be seen as less a decision against secularism, and more a decision with political repercussions. Of course, you couldn’t get a fair decision that has only Lina Joy’s welfare at heart due to the noise being made by those who are scaremongering the rest. The country would not be inundated with ‘apostates’ had the ruling gone the other way - it would have shown Malaysia to be a progressive Islamic nation that cares about individual rights as well as taking into account the mobs who would have no doubt resorted to violence to get their point across. This now shows Malaysia’s dual legal system to be broken as it can’t care for all. It separates people and pigeon-holes them so that people will continually fall through the cracks when their lives don’t meet the expectations of ‘they’.
May 30th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
will be interesting to see what happens next and how… will she leave Malaysia and live her life overseas? Seems like the only choice she has now to live the life she wants… and who would blame her?
May 30th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
this only shows how fake religion can be when one has to be forced. the heart is not interested, what’s the use? can she go to heaven if still not interested?
May 30th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
god says: aren’t u guys supposed to stone her to death? - that means you’re in a total ignorance of other people’s religion. and yet you claim yourself as malaysians. duh!
god says: this is a secular nation, ur law means crap here. - hello friend. muslims are the majority here, u live in harmony in this country because of our religion teaches us to be understanding towards others. without a religion, you’re nowhere. just like u.
May 30th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I think your comments are unfair. I repect your love for your religion. Imagine this, what happpens if you are living abroad and they do not allow you to practice Islam. Religion is a personal belief. Should we force a religion on a non-believer….I mean whats the point? If you truly believe apostasy is against God’s will, then isn’t it the same for other religion and isn’t it a relationship between God and that someone? who are we to judge something that has no clear right and wrong?
Secondly, if there is a law against conversion, why not make it vice versa? non-muslims are not allowed to convert to islam and muslims are not allowed to convert to other religion?……I personally don’t believe in this. Malaysia is one of the most racially and religiously prejudiced country in the world! If you look at any developed nation, even in those that are predominantly Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, they allow freedom of religion.
May 30th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
The Islamic legal punishment (hadd) for apostasy is
death. This may have been intended as a punishment for
non-Muslims who adopted Islam, but turned away from it
at a later time. But the issue becomes different when
capital punishment for apostasy turns into a means of
overpowering and subjugation when used against Muslims
themselves whenever they turn away from Islam. They did
not choose to be born Muslims! I believe it was this conflict that prompted a writer like Muhammad Emaara to emphasise in his book, The Invasion of Thought – Fantasy or Fact? that Islam allows its adherents to turn away from it! “As long as the sceptic has searched as far as he is able,” says Doctor Emaara, “but has not found his long-desired objective in Islam, then he is under no compulsion to believe in it.” The Muslim’s right to turn away from his religion, he says, has been secured by two rules: “No compulsion is there in religion” (Sura al-Baqara 2:256), and “God charges no soul save to its capacity” (Sura al-Baqara 2:286). Moreover he is to be treated on earth in the same way as those who are fully Muslim. As for his judgement in the afterlife, it is a matter entrusted to God’s own hands, and there are Muslim theologians who believe that, in keeping with the view that “God charges no soul save to its capacity,” such people will indeed escape punishment.
June 1st, 2007 at 2:33 pm
if you believe in a god almighty, why force somebody not to leave Islam when she has no faith in allah?
June 1st, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Muslims talk and talk only –too much of crap — but without positive actions for advancement in life. They will be talking of heaven and hell and afterlife but don’t know much here on the earth they live on. They know nuts about science and technology (except for the technology for destruction of lives and properties).
They even believe in dying for religion to be awarded 72 virgins in Allah’s Sexland (sorry, homosexuals are entitled to 28 young virgin boys only).
Anyway, if you see a card dropping from the sky, it would be Lina Joy’s Identity Card. Is their terrorist God also going to stop her from becoming a christian in another land? T H I N K!!!!
But before that, please replace the cameldung the original cowdung.
June 4th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
It’s really interesting for guys to believe that 72 virgins will be waiting for them in Allah’s paradise, what about virgin boys for moslem gals? Does Allah discriminate against gals? Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the supposedly virgins are really pseudo virgins! Anyway, where do the virgins come from in Heavens, mmmmmm……