With R Subashini still fresh in the news, we hear of yet another child tussle. This one had the Syariah Court, lawyers, religious officials and even the police reportedly getting into the fray. A 15-month old child whom the parents have named Divayah Tharshini has been snatched by the Jabatan Agama Islam Melaka (JAIM), the child's father V Suresh, 28, alleges in his police report.

Divayah's 28-year-old mother, Siti Fatimah Abdul Karim, is currently being held in a religious rehabilitation centre in Ulu Yam, Selangor. The state has the authority to hold in detention those Muslims it deems as deviating from the faith. Siti Fatimah has made a police report stating that she is Hindu in her heart, having been brought up by her Hindu grandmother as such. She wishes to legally change her religion, and name to Rovathi.

Siti Fatimah's predicament has echoes of Lina Joy. Bearing a Muslim name, it is impossible in Malaysia for her to solemnise a civil marriage to Suresh.

According to news reports, Siti Fatimah had filed in the Syariah Court to leave Islam and her application has been rejected. I've been given to understand that in practice, it's near impossible to obtain this sort of dispensation or 'exit permit' from the ecclesiastical bodies.

The Syariah Court has instead granted custody of Divayah to its maternal grandmother who is a Muslim convert. This affair in Malacca could become another cause celebre. Lorry driver Suresh is seeking legal advice, and it's possible that his child custody battle could eventually be wending its weary way through the courts.

The other comparative tangle has been years in legal limbo. I am moved that amidst the sustained and indescribable torment that she has let herself in for, Azlina Jailani should choose to see herself as Lina 'Joy'. And that she has found such grace. Predictably, Siti Fatimah is now also drowning in a sea of self-righteous Muslim ire for her desire to 'apostate' (though she's never practised Islam), and her family will have to put up with much hardship.

There are scholars who have interpreted Islamic jurisprudence as mandating chopping off the head for those leaving Islam. Though not an Islamic scholar but an Umno functionary, Kedah Senator Tajul Urus Mohd Zain said something similar at his party's last general assembly. "If he [a would-be apostate] insists on leaving Islam, he must be beheaded. There is no Christian Malay in Malaysia. Malays are 100 per cent Muslim. There is no compromise on this," Tajul was quoted saying.

Going by his line of unreasoning, the impossible anomaly that is Lina Joy does not exist.

While the Malay-Muslim polity is implacable on the rigidity of its ever expanding Islamic perimeters, the country's non-Muslims are just as adamantly resolute in their head-in-the-sand approach. The attitude of some non-Muslim lawyers callous of Lina Joy's plight can be summed up as thus: She is Malay. She was born and raised Muslim. Leave the rebel to her people to deal with and punish as they see fit.

Treading on eggshells

Because the body politic has locked the practice of Islam within a high voltage live wire fence, well-trained and over-apprehensive non-Muslims are fearful of being electrocuted if they as much as peek inside this high-security area. The 10 non-Muslim Cabinet Ministers who withdrew their memorandum to the Prime Minister on safeguarding minority rights beat a hasty retreat without even an Ouch !

Islam itself may be sacrosanct to its adherents but the people who enforce the governing of its practice are surely not sacred relics. Viewing them as human beings and not as holy objects means that not their every single action, even if they do proclaim to take it in the name of Islam, must automatically be countenanced. Forcibly parting a young child from its mother is one such action.

I'm not sure how applicable the description 'clergy' is to Islam, so I won't use this term. It seems fair enough, however, to describe the uztaz and other officials in state employ as civil servants. After all, they receive a salary from the government for the job they do in, or on behalf of, government institutions.

Reinforcing my contention that they should be regarded as government people is the accusation by Siti Fatimah that the JAIM officers behaved in a rough and high-handed manner when confronting her. Her lament has credence in the light of past state behaviour vis-a-vis Malaysia's most disadvantaged and marginalised group the small segment of Hindus.

Malaysians are well aware that the country has among, if not, the most bloated civil service in the world. The mammoth size of the leviathan on government payroll is in direct proportion to the XXL-sized Cabinet. A tentacle of this leviathan that is gaining more muscle by the day is the religious enforcers and thought police.

Civil servants are also known to make life difficult for the general public. Take their treatment of Lina Joy. All she wants is for the National Registry Department to remove the word 'Islam' from her identity card so that she can get married. And at her age early 40s time is fast running out on her biological clock to have a child in wedlock.

As for Siti Fatimah and Suresh, their child still does not have a birth certificate. The Gordian knot tying up processes in bureaucracy is a rope that's been soaked in Islamisation, or in the water bucket that the wardens have hauled from their own and particular well of Islamisation.

Now please don't let's confuse Islam with Islamisation. Islam is the faith professed by one-fifth of the globe. Islamisation in the context of this discussion is what the Malay-Muslim polity is doing in this country; in a few striking instances, what the hegemony has done is give the religion a bad name. Minorities in Malaysia are becoming highly disquieted by what Islamisation portends.

In the courtroom, R Subashini's lead counsel Malik Imtiaz Sarwar rightly argues that at issue is the question of law. The man in the street, however, can't help but to think that Islam or its dominance in this country has been conflated into the proceedings. More is at play than just the jurisdiction of the courts.

The Subashini case carries far-reaching implications: In his earlier judgment on March 13, Justice Hasan Lah construes the Federal Constitution as recognising the coexistence of the two systems, civil and syariah, with each having its own role to play. "As such the two courts must be regarded as having the same standing in this country." Other legal minds, alarmed, dispute that such a construction is a correct reading of the Constitution and worry about this setting a precedent.

The mob mentality

If the majority cares to know what the minority makes of this imbroglio, I would say that some of us see the act of conversion to Islam increasingly taking on hues of opportunism. That it's become the ace in the sleeve, the trump card, to clinch victory in family and other disputes. That the application of this Ketuanan Melayu driven-Islamisation has the effect of making the victimised bang their heads against glass walls.

Pretty words from the apologists like Compassion and Mercy are banalities like ribbons and bows. When you open the wrapping, the package turns out to be nothing more than a glass box. Possible options are glimpsed but the invisible barriers remain solid. Say the estranged non-Muslim wife does ultimately submit to appear before the Syariah Court which by no means she should who will represent her?

Take Subashini's present legal team. Neither Malik nor his three co-counsel are peguam syarie (syariah lawyers). Subashini will need to engage a fresh advocate. In a controversial case such as hers, she will be hard-pressed to find one qualified to stand in a Syariah Court sympathetic, especially if their association would cause her counsel to be harassed for being anti-Islam, or if it goes against his own religious leanings.

So while it is possible that Subashini is able to apply to the Syariah Appeal Court seeking redress, it's impractical to expect her to be able to find a peguam syarie to take on her case. That's the reality of it.

We still remember the death threats previously against Malik and a familiar refrain is that he's syaitan , a devil, for his high-profile involvement in contentious perceived as 'anti-Islam' cases. Subashini's second counsel Haris Ibrahim has also come in for his fair share of vilification.

For all that Malik and Haris are Muslim, their detractors have pitched these human rights activists into the Enemy of Islam camp. The irony is lost on the hostile crowd that if Islam purports to defend the oppressed, then it is these exceptional individuals and what they bravely do is that best exemplifies the high principles of Islamic justice. They act while others are in a self-induced paralysis of conscience.

The concern for non-Muslim Malaysia is that Malik, Haris & Co are only but a handful, whereas the anti-Article 11 mindset is a veritable sea of inhumanity. More Malaysians need to wake up to the fact that Lina Joy, Siti Fatimah and others like them are bruised and battered from walking into glass walls! They and other potential candidates for religious rehab need our moral support more than ever.