Beruas MP Ngeh Koo Ham of DAP has blamed the National Registration Department (NRD) as the culprit for the ongoing religious conversion tussles in the country.

 

"The recent religious conflict and tension occur because certain quarters especially the National Registration Department, refuse to respect and uphold the provisions of the Federal Constitution," he said in a statement today.

 

Prior to this, Ngeh said a non-Muslim could convert to Islam and convert out again without any troubles because the NRD was willing to accept a change of religion simply with a sworn statement by an applicant expressing his intent to change religion and advertising it in the newspapers. This was some 30 years ago.

 

"Subsequently, it was said that in order to take into account the sensitivity of the Muslims, it was not advisable to have it advertised. 

 

“It was then agreed that the Islamic religious council or the Islamic affairs departments would issue letters confirming that a person has left the Islamic faith and that was sufficient for the NRD to make the necessary amendments to the identity card," he said.

 

However, Ngeh said the NRD has become increasingly difficult and now demand people to obtain a Syariah Court declaration that they have left Islam.

 

"Such a requirement contravenes Article 11(1) of the Federal Constitution as the decision to decide one’s faith now rests with a third party. 

 

"Article 11(1) guarantees absolute right to choose one’s religion and any decision otherwise to prevent him from this freedom will be unconstitutional and unacceptable," he said.

 

Freedom of religion

 

Ngeh added that the NRD must accept the fact that people were free to choose their religion.

 

"Non-Muslims must accept the fact that laws may be passed to prohibit them from propagating their religion to people of the Muslim faith.

 

"Muslims must accept the fact that if a Muslim on his or her own free will wants to leave the religion of Islam he or she must be allowed to do so," he said.

 

Ngeh call on the NRD to return to the old where a statutory declaration was sufficient for a person to proof their choice of religion.

 

"Once the religious status of a person has been resolved through the change of the particulars in his or her identity card, the issues and conflicts in the many cases that we have seen will resolve on its own," he said.

 

Ngeh's remarks comes after the Penang Islamic Affairs Department (Jaipp) on Monday seized the body of Teoh Cheng Cheng during her funeral on suspicion that she was Muslim.

 

However, the Penang Syariah High Court June 12 ruled she was not a Muslim after finding discrepancies in her conversion documents and also hearing testimonies that she did not practice Islam after conversion.

 

Teoh's body was then released to her family and was cremated the same day.