Suhakam helps with Friday sermons on human rights
The Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) has been contributing to Friday sermon texts in a bid to raise awareness about human rights issues among Muslims.
According to commissioner Nik Salida Suhaila Nik Saleh, the federal government body has been cooperating with state Islamic authorities in the Federal Territories, Negeri Sembilan and Penang on the initiative since last year.
Next, they hope to reach out to more states...
The Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) has been contributing to Friday sermon texts in a bid to raise awareness about human rights issues among Muslims.
According to commissioner Nik Salida Suhaila Nik Saleh, the federal government body has been cooperating with state Islamic authorities in the Federal Territories, Negeri Sembilan and Penang on the initiative since last year.
Next, they hope to reach out to more states.
“When we engaged with the (state religious) departments, we discovered we could prepare ideas and thoughts for state religious authorities for them to write their Friday sermons based on human rights issues [...]
“[...] Friday sermons have been talking about elements of human rights for the past 10 years, but they don’t use human rights terms like ‘equality’, ‘discrimination’ and ‘the protection of women’.
“In human rights, we need strong language to disseminate the idea of how serious human rights are. So that is what is happening, when we write the sermons, we use human rights terms,” she said, when asked by the media to elaborate on her comment during a forum on Suhakam’s 20th anniversary in Kuala Lumpur today.
The Islamic jurisprudence scholar added that Suhakam’s recommended texts were optional and state religious departments could implement them at their discretion.
Finding common ground
Nik Salida Suhaila (below) stressed the need for Suhakam to have good working relationships with state Islamic authorities.
Even if they differed in opinion on certain topics, she said mutual understanding was a must to reduce any misconceptions about each other.
She also supported efforts to arrive at common ground on human rights issues.
“[...] We have to understand that in reality and in practice, in this country Muslims are the majority and we do a lot of issues of human rights involving Muslims.
“The state religious departments are the main agencies dealing with Muslim matters, so without their support and their understanding, I think it's difficult for Suhakam to (work) in a silo,” she said.
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