Rich,
"IN" in front of your "SANE". LOL... Alladin Sane
I guess it was too subtle for you...
Too bad you are reading stuff in my posts that aren't there to begin with Well To be sure, the Zionist Jews (descendants of the Christ killers some 2000 years ago) do not believe in, nor do they practise, Christ's dictum, "Love thy enemies as you love thyself." I am taking something out of context ? I think not. Message 22770851
BTW referencing that same post of yours ... Have you any comment on the utterly disgraceful lack of help offered the Palestinians by their oil rich Muslim brethren ?
As to extrapolating ... well read some of your posts yourself about the Freemasons... and not only that but also you are a self proclaimed expert..I know because I have been a member of some secret order myself!
Message 22790226
OK Wikpedia a Zionist tool ROTFLMAO... I'll agree that sometimes it is suspect due to the nature of its sources...
Anyway...
Chew on this... current enough.. ? A country with Sharia law.... Religion has no place in the courts ... unless you want trouble with your minorities... or I guess unless they are coerced into converting...
Once Muslim, now mired in Malaysia's courts
Contributed by Anonymous on Thursday, August 24 @ 20:08:22 CDT
Religion
By Jane Perlez The New York Times
Published: August 24, 2006
KUALA LUMPUR From the scant personal details that can be pieced together about Lina Joy, she converted from Islam to Christianity eight years ago and since then has endured extraordinary hurdles in her desire to marry the man in her life.
Her name is a household word in this majority Muslim country. But she is now in hiding after death threats from Islamic extremists, who accuse her of being an apostate.
Five years ago she started proceedings in the civil courts to seek the right to marry her Christian fiancé and have children. Because she had renounced her Muslim faith, Joy, 42, argued that Malaysia's Islamic Shariah courts, which control matters like marriage, property and divorce, did not have jurisdiction over her.
In a series of decisions, the civil courts ruled against her. Then, last month, her lawyer, Benjamin Dawson, appeared before Malaysia's highest court, the Court of Appeals, to argue that Joy's conversion be considered a right protected under the Constitution, not a religious matter for the Shariah courts.
"She's trying to live her life with someone she loves," Dawson said in an interview.
Threats against Joy had become so insistent, and the passions over her conversion so inflamed, he had concluded there was no room for her and her fiancé in Malaysia. The most likely solution, he said, was for her to emigrate.
For Malaysia, which considers itself a moderate and modern Muslim country with a tolerance for its multiple religions and ethnic groups of Malays, Indians and Chinese, the case has kicked up a firestorm that goes to the very heart of who is a Malay, and what is Malaysia.
Joy's case has heightened a searing battle that has included street protests and death threats between groups advocating a secular interpretation of the Constitution, and Islamic groups that contend the Shariah courts should have supremacy in many matters.
Some see the rulings against Joy as a sign of increasing Islamization, and of the pressures felt by the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as it tries to respond to the opposition Islamic party, Parti Islam se-Malaysia.
About 60 percent of Malaysia's 26 million people are Muslims, 20 percent are Buddhists, nearly 10 percent are Christians and 6 percent are Hindus.
Malaysia has powerful Islamic affairs departments in its 13 states and in the capital district around Kuala Lumpur. The departments, a kind of parallel bureaucracy to the state apparatus that was strengthened during the 22-year rule of former Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, run the Shariah courts. (Your buddy Mahathir again !!)
"Malaysia is at a crossroads," Dawson said. "Do we go down the Islamic road, or do we maintain the secular character of the federal Constitution that has been eroding in the last 10 years?"
In rulings in her case, civil courts said Malays could not renounce Islam because the Constitution defined Malays to be Muslims.
They also ruled that a request to change her identity card from Muslim to Christian had to be decided by the Shariah courts. There she would be considered an apostate, and if she did not repent she surely would be sentenced to several years in an Islamic center for rehabilitation.
Dawson said Joy was baptized in 1998 at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Kuala Lumpur. Because she considered herself a Christian, Joy did not believe that the Shariah courts applied to her.
Because of the death threats, including some calls to hunt her down, Dawson said, he could not make her available for an interview.
Similarly, her fiancé, a Christian of ethnic Indian background whom Joy met in 1990, had received death threats and was not prepared to be interviewed.
Last month, Badawi appeared to side with the Islamists when he ordered that forums organized around the country to discuss religious freedom must stop. The forums, run by a group called Article 11, named after the section of the Constitution that says Malaysians are free to choose their religion, were disrupted on several occasions by Islamic protesters.
The chief organizer of the Article 11 forums, a well-known human rights lawyer, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a Muslim, received a death threat this month that was widely circulated by e-mail.
With the heading "Wanted Dead," the message featured a photograph of Malik and said: "This is the face of the traitorous lawyer to Islam who supports the Lina Joy apostasy case. Distribute to our friends so they can recognize this traitor. If you find him dead by the side of the road, do not help."
Malik, 36, who presented a brief in support of Joy to the Appeals Court, said he was seeking police protection. "We must not confuse the crucial distinction between a country in which the majority are Muslims, and is thus an Islamic country, and a country in which the supreme law is the Shariah, an Islamic state," Malik said.
Conversions of Muslims to Christianity are not common in Malaysia, though most converts do not seek official approval for marriage and therefore do not run into the obstacles that Joy confronted.
One 38-year-old convert, who said in an interview at a Roman Catholic parish that he would provide only his Christian names, Paul Michael, and not his surname, for fear of retribution, described how he led a double life.
"Church members know us as who we are, and the outside world knows us as we were," he said. He was fearful, he said, that if his conversion became public the religious authorities would come after him, and he could be sentenced to a religious rehabilitation camp.
One such place, hidden in the forest at Ulu Yam Baru, 32 kilometers, or 20 miles, outside the capital, is ringed like a prison by barbed wire, with dormitories protected by a second ring of barbed wire. Outside a sign says, "House of Faith," and inside the inmates spend much of their time studying Islam.
Paul Michael said he and other former Muslims moved from church to church for services to avoid detection.
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24 August, 2006
MALAYSIA
indianmalaysian.com
and...
24 August, 2006
MALAYSIA
Church that baptised Lina Joy, convert from Islam, is reported
Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) – Malaysia’s Federal Court has said it intends to take its time before passing sentence in the appeal of Lina Joy because the issue is “sensitive and needs careful examination.” Lina Joy’s appeal to have her conversion to Christianity officially recognized has been in the Federal Court for months. Meanwhile, pressure by Islamic extremists is intensifying daily: they are intent on preventing a positive outcome of the case that may pave the way for a “flight from Islam” by other believers. Recently, for example, the parish where Lina Joy was baptized learned it has a police record.
The parishioners of Our Lady of Fatima, Brickfields, where Joy was baptized, were informed about a police report against their parish. According to the Harakah fortnightly paper dated August 16-31, a man called Taib Hisham reported the church, claiming that Joy’s baptism went against Article 11 of the Constitution that says: “The law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam.” Taib was supported in his initiative by the youth wing of the Islamic Party of Malaysia (known as PAS) and Islamic NGOs. Article 11 also guarantees religious freedom.
Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, Chief Justice and member of the Federal Court, said he needed time, together with his colleagues, to look into submissions by all the parties carefully because “the issue was sensitive”. The judges said they had to consider the submissions of every non-governmental organisation (NGO). Those ranging themselves on Joy’s side include the Malaysian Council for Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism; the Malaysian Women Lawyers Association and Sisters in Islam.
On 3 July, the Federal Court put off its verdict indefinitely. Lina Joy converted to Christianity in 1998 and asked the National Registration Department and then the Court of Appeal to drop the word ‘Islam’ from her identity card (that notes one’s faith). She was refused in both cases and now she is waiting for the verdict of the federal Court. De facto, two legal systems coexist in the country: one based on Islam; the other, on the constitution. And the two are often in conflict
Islamic conservatives fear that if the judges allow her to leave Islam, this would open the floodgates to many other requests of Muslims wanting to change their faith. So while they wait for the sentence, they are taking their “precautions”.
Local sources said no effort is being spared to convince the Muslim community to take up a stand “in defence of Islam”. For example, several blogs and websites, exempt from censorship, are calling on people to pray and fast for a verdict that “spells a victory for Islam” in Malaysia.
Now I wonder where that kind of talk always ends up ?
regards
Al |
