Catholic Bishop Emeritus Dr Paul Tan Chee Ing has described the decision of an appellate court on unilateral religious conversion of minors, as a “triumph for supremacist Islam that translates as a setback to constitutional democratic norms".

The Jesuit-trained prelate declared that the Court of Appeal's decision yesterday to overturn a High Court ruling quashing the unilateral conversion of three children by their Muslim father who was Hindu when he sired the children with kindergarten teacher M Indira Gandhi, has literally turned Malaysia from a parliamentary democracy into a now-quasi Islamic state.

The mother had applied to the Ipoh High Court to quash the conversion in 2009 of her three children by her Muslim convert husband.

The court granted the application but on appeal, and the ruling was overturned yesterday in a majority decision by a three-member panel headed by Justice Balia Yusof Wahi, who was joined by Justice Badariah Sahamid. The dissenting judge was Hamid Sultan Abu Backer.

Paul Tan, a vocal defender of minority rights, particularly as these pertained to freedom of religion, said in a narrative that starkly set forth the facts of the case: “The mother in question is Hindu; her marriage to her husband who was Hindu had been registered as a civil union; and the children were born and initially raised as Hindu.

“The husband then converts to Islam, spirits the children away from the mother and has them converted to the same religion.

“The High Court rightly finds the action an infringement of the custody rights of the mother and an encroachment on parents' rights to determine the religious belief of their children when they are minors.

“But an appellate court now says that a matter which should not be the unilateral decision of one parent, actually comes under the jurisdiction of the syariah court.

Is there still hope?

“If this is not a confirmation that supremacist Islam is in the saddle and rides roughshod over the rights of mothers, women and other minorities, I don't what it is,” he noted.

The bishop said Malaysia is slithering down the slope towards an Islamic theocracy and that only people like Johor Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar and the NGO, G25, are prepared to stand athwart the relentless bandwagon to say “Stop”.

Paul Tan disclosed that following the Court of Appeal’s decision, he received an e-mail from A Vaithilingam of the Malaysia Hindu Sangam (MHS) who described the decision as “contradicting the assurance given by the then PM and attorney-general in 1988”.

Vaithilingam, a past president of the MHS, noted in the same e-mail: “Thank God, one Muslim judge dissented. I believe there is still hope. Is there!?”

Paul Tan said that as a Christian, he was disposed to rejoicing in hope but that there were precious few reasons to remain sanguine about the future of democratic constitutionalism in Malaysia.

“Everything has to yield to a thrusting Islam and in spite of the horrific depravations inflicted by that thrust in parts of the world, only a rare few are able to stand up and say 'Enough is enough'.”