KLANG MP Charles Santiago urged Perlis mufti Datuk Seri Asri Zainal Abidin to watch his words when commenting on the unilateral conversion of Loh Siew Hong’s children to Islam.
“Could someone tell Asri to take his nonsense down a notch or two? He’s blaming DAP, berating human rights lawyer Siti Kasim and calling Indians “the LTTE folks”, while glossing over the real issue.
“While I understand Asri may be empty of intellectual debates, even he should know that stirring racist sentiments and pitting one community against the other is dangerous in multiracial Malaysia,” he said, in a statement.
In a Youtube video published on Feb 17, Asri said he would defend Loh’s three children’s unilateral conversion to Islam, which he said was allowed under the state laws.
On that note, he berated those who argued that the conversion was illegal, accusing them of being DAP and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) sympathisers.
It is to note that that the Federal Court, in 2018, had ruled in a unanimous decision that a minor can only be converted with the consent from both parents.
Loh then filed a habeas corpus to get back her children from the Perlis Welfare Department, where the High Court today ordered the welfare department to release her children to Loh immediately.
On that note, Santiago said the issue now is that the Perlis religious authority seems to be planning to defend the unilateral conversion of the three children despite it being unconstitutional.
The DAP leader lamented that Loh had to undergo even more emotional trauma following physical abuse from her ex-husband; with a legal matter being turned into a religious one.
Get cracking, Mr Attorney General
“But in a country where the deputy Women, Family and Community Development minister herself publicly condones violence, as long as it’s a gentle strike, we can’t quite expect this issue to be looked at through the right lens.
“The issue here is domestic violence and how husbands misuse Islam in a marital dispute, despite a 2018 Federal Court ruling that bans unilateral conversions,” Santiago mentioned.
Training his guns against Asri again, the lawmaker said he refused to believe that the mufti was ignorant of the law, adding the clergyman knows well that the Federal Constitution is the supreme law of the country and the apex court’s ruling is binding on all states.
He then urged Attorney General Tan Sri Idrus Harun, who had kept mum on the case so far, to ensure all state laws comply with the Federal Court ruling.
“I hope Idrus acts soon enough or we will continue to see more cases of unilateral conversions by husbands who do it out of spite.” Santiago concluded. – Feb 21, 2022
