Religious authorities today broke up a mass gathering of Shiite Muslims and detained four, in the latest action against the banned community.

The minority Shiite community has been accused of threatening national security, and some 200 were arrested last December, with some charged in a religious court and awaiting trial.

Wahab Omar, a Shiite community leader, said religious department officers accompanied by 20 police raided a gathering to commemorate the birthday of Fatimah Zahra, a daughter of the Prophet Mohammed.

NONE "We were having lunch... with 200 people, many of whom are non-Muslims, to celebrate the birthday, when our premises were raided," he told AFP .

Wahab said their leader Kamil Zuhairi Abdul Aziz (left) and three other followers were arrested.

"It was purely a social gathering and yet we continue to be harassed by religious authorities," he said of the event held in suburban Kuala Lumpur.

Nurhamizah Othman, spokeswoman for the Selangor religious department Jais, confirmed the raid and the detention of the four.

'They challenge religious authority'

"The sect knows that there is a fatwa in Malaysia banning Shiism and yet they challenge the religious department's authority as the enforcer of Islamic religious laws by carrying out such events," she said.

NONE A 1989 Islamic law and a 1996 fatwa by top Islamic clerics banned Shiism, declaring it a "deviant ideology."

In March, minister in charge of Islamic affairs Jamil Khir Baharom told parliament that Shiites were barred from promoting their faith to other Muslims in the country but are free to practise it themselves.

The split between Sunnis and Shiites dates back to a dispute over succession after the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632.

The estimated 40,000 Shiites in Malaysia are one of several Islamic sects under close watch by religious authorities, who crack down hard on so-called deviant groups.

Malaysia has a dual-track legal system, with civil courts running in parallel with Islamic Sharia courts where Muslim Malays can be tried on religious and moral charges.

- AFP