Report on the State of Religious Liberty In
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REPORT ON THE STATE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN MALAYSIA FOR THE YEARS 2009 & 2010 Prepared by the Religious Liberty Commission National Evangelical Christian Fellowship Malaysia Page 1 of 50 1 BACKGROUND TO THE TWO YEARS UNDER REVIEW 1.1 Introduction In 2009, Malaysia witnessed a change in her political leadership when Najib Tun Razak became the nation’s sixth Prime Minister. In contrast to the start of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s administration in early 2004, the Christian community was noticeably less optimistic about the political environment surrounding issues of religious liberty when Najib assumed office in April 2009. As is well known, Abdullah was forced to step down because of his perceived poor leadership of his party, the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), and to accept responsibility for the results of the March 2008 General Elections which saw the Barisan Nasional (BN) lose its two-thirds majority in Parliament as well as the governments of three major West Coast states. UMNO is the senior member of BN, the ruling coalition. On assuming the Prime Minister’s office, Najib, like those before him, began his tenure by defining his vision and direction for the country. Abdullah and Dr Mahathir Mohamad had also done so but Najib’s was in trumping spades, going by the sheer number and breathtaking level of ambition. Through the introduced “1Malaysia” concept, he implied the promise of more social cohesiveness and less ethnically- and religiously- motivated governance. He also introduced the slogan “People First, Performance Now” to counter the public image that the BN was an elitist organisation that only looked out for itself and whose policy results fell far short of its rhetoric. Less remembered but important in its own right was Najib’s call for a “new national discourse”, one that was based on transparency and accountability and that embraced respect and fairness in public dialogue. To give this “new national discourse” a sense of substance, he instituted three major initiatives, viz. the New Economic Model (NEM) to lay out economic goals and Page 2 of 50 strategies, and the Government and Economic Transformation Programmes (GTP and ETP); both far-reaching attempts to (as their names imply) thoroughly overhaul the national governance and the Malaysian economy. It was obvious that he saw himself – and was unafraid to be seen – more as a chief executive officer rather than politician. Being enamoured by the “blue ocean strategy” he enlisted its main founder, the Harvard management guru, W Chan Kim as an advisor. Najib was a man in a hurry. He needed to prove his bona fides in hope that these would convince the voting public that he was the right man for the job. It must also be noted that Najib assumed office immediately after the September 2008 global financial crisis and there were immense concerns of severe economic recession. In order to ensure that his reform initiatives were not held back and confounded by a slow, unwieldy and ill-equipped civil service, he relied on foreign and local private consultants and highly-paid talent from the private sector to staff PEMANDU, a vehicle established in the Prime Minister’s Department to drive the changes. Naturally, this did not endear him to the civil service. But of much greater consequence was the fact that his reform initiatives also did not endear him to the political hardliners within his party. In Najib’s efforts to get things moving, he had to court wealthy businessmen, professionals and foreign investors and was seen as ignoring the Malay agenda. Three things that he did, in particular, seemed to fuel the latter belief: First, the significant reduction in the scope and powers of the Foreign Investment Committee (FIC), second, the removal of the need to reserve a portion of all initial public offerings in equity to Bumiputera and, third, the abolishment of the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development. It was obvious that Najib was not going to settle for anything less than an all-out effort to craft Malaysia in the image of what he thought the Malaysian public wanted Page 3 of 50 and needed, notwithstanding growing disaffection by his party. He and his coterie of advisors must have surmised that their policies and programmes were the antidote to the marked political shift and drift that had led to the outcome of the previous general elections. In terms of religious liberty and for the Christian community, initial expectations varied. There are those who were sceptical and doubted that the state of religious liberty would improve given the shocking and unexpected firebombing incidents involving three churches and others which were vandalized. But there were others who looked at the positive side and preferred to give him a chance especially in light of his three new major initiatives pursuant to his “People First, Performance Now” philosophy. The question that lingers on everyone’s mind is whether the state of religious liberty has improved and been substantially enhanced during the tenure of the Najib administration, given the bold initiatives he had laid out? In contrast to previous years, this report will encompass a two-year period for the years 2009 to 2010. The Religious Liberty Commission is of the view that this is necessary and of upmost interest as many of the issues and violation of religious liberty occurred not only in 2009 but followed through to 2010. The following pages are the report in substantially the same format and layout as previous years. Page 4 of 50 2 ISSUES CONCERNING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM Introduction: Constitutional Issues The Federal Constitution of Malaysia is the supreme law of the land which expressly provides for the fundamental right to freedom of religion. Article 11 of our Constitution stipulates and guarantees that every person has the right to profess and practise his religion subject to State law (for the federal territories, Federal law) which may control and restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine and belief amongst the people professing the religion of Islam. This means the Constitution recognises that all persons have the right and freedom to choose his or her own religion according to one’s own choice, conscience, belief and conviction. This expression of “every person” must include all people of any and all ethnic groups and cannot be confined to a segment of society to the exclusion of any. To do so would be a mockery to the Constitution. The right to profess and practise one's own religion would imply the right to choose a religion without the need to be subjected to any conditions. It also means the right to manage one's own religious affairs and institution without undue interference or discrimination. As regards the right to propagate, Article 11(4) stipulates that state law (in the case of the federal territories, Federal Law) may control and restrict the propagation of religious doctrine or belief among Muslims. It is argued that such provisions allowing the state to control the propagation of non-Islamic religions is clearly contrary to the intention of the Constitution and indeed ultra vires against the backdrop of Article 11. This is arguably the case as the Constitution envisages a secular policy; Malaysia is not a theocratic but a secular state with Islam being declared to be the religion of the Page 5 of 50 Federation under Article 3 of the Constitution. This, however, cannot be taken to mean that Malaysia is an Islamic state as it only provides that the nation espouses a national religion but does not exclude the practice of other religions. Such is expressly provided in Article 3 which states that that provision does not derogate from any other provision of the Constitution (including Article 4 entrenching the principle of the supremacy of the Constitution). It also goes on in the same breath to pronounce that all religions may be practised peacefully and in harmony in any part of the Federation. It is rather unfortunate that the process of Islamisation which started more than 25 years ago has altered this fundamental perception and outlook within Malaysian society. Today, Islamisation continues to constrict the free and legitimate exercise of religious rights guaranteed under the Federal Constitution while incessantly undermining the secular basis and character of Malaysia. 2.1 Right to Profess 2.1.1 Conversion Issues/Cases Article 121(1A) of the Federal Constitution provides that the two High Courts in Malaysia referred in Article 121(1) shall have no jurisdiction in respect of any matter within the jurisdiction of the Syariah courts. This clause has been inserted with the purpose of delineating the judicial jurisdiction of Malaysia’s dual system of civil and Syariah courts and to prevent the High Courts from exercising its powers of judicial review over the decision of a Syariah court. However, far from clarifying the judicial ambit, the contesting interpretation of the clause has led to much controversy and social tension, especially when the cases involved are inter-religious in nature and the parties include Muslims as well as non-Muslims. Page 6 of 50 Another provision in the Federal Constitution which has raised public concern is Article 12(4) which provides that the religion of a person under the age of eighteen years shall be decided by his parent or guardian. Of late, the courts have been interpreting this clause, particularly the word “parent”, literally, instead of adopting a purposive approach. It was ruled that unilateral conversion of a child to Islam can be done without the consent or knowledge of the non-converting spouse. This has led to a spate of controversial cases, some of which occurred within the two years under this review.