Kedah PAS Youth has today urged the intervention of the Conference of Rulers to help settle issues on custody and the religious faith of a child, where one of the parents had converted to Islam.

Its information chief Ahmad Tarmizi Sulaiman said in a statement today that it supports the initiative taken by Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organisation (Mapim) to seek an audience with the Conference of Rulers over the case involving K Pathmanathan @ Muhammad Ridhuan Abdullah, who converted his children to Islam.

“Kedah PAS Youth is in agreement with Mapim that the conference should intervene and resolve this conflict as this is one of the functions of the council to defend the Islamic institutions from being desecrated by others,” he said.

“PAS would also like to question where are Umno and Perkasa in this matter? Why are they keeping quiet when this involves someone’s Islamic faith? Why are they only harping on the ‘Allah’ issue and keeping quiet in this?” asked Ahmad Tarmizi further.

Ahmad Tarmizi said the Ipoh High Court has decided to give custody of the three siblings in the case to Ridhuan’s former wife, M Indira Gandhi, and also declared the children’s conversion to Islam as null and void.

“This is despite the Seremban High Court involving S Deepa (right) versus Izwan Abdullah’s case, not allowing the faith of the child to return to their original religion as it respects the Syariah Court’s jurisdiction based on the spirit of the federal constitution Article 121 (1A),” he said.

The Kedah PAS youth information chief, said the decision in Perak  happened as a result of a technicality, resulting in the Ipoh High Court violating the Syariah Court’s decision.

In that case, Ipoh High Court judge Lee Swee Seng (right), had last year ruled that unilateral conversion of children by a parent is against international norms or convention. 

Ahmad Tarmizi said Indira Gandhi may have custody of the two children. The daughter was converted at the age of five and is now 11.

He said what Ridhuan is doing was only protecting the faith of his daughter and to follow the Islamic lifestyle.

“Where is the spirit of Article 3 of the federal constitution where Islam is recognised as the religion of the federation?” asked Ahmad Tarmizi.

“This shows that Article 3 has no function when such issue see no resolution which favours Islam,” he said.