Why need for Islamic authorities to raid Hindu wedding, lawyers ask

 

(Malay Mail Online) – The Selangor Islamic Religious Department’s (Jais) raid on a Hindu wedding allegedly involving a Muslim bride was legal but far from necessary, said lawyers critical of the enforcement action.

Constitutional and sharie lawyer Nizam Bashir said although Jais was within its powers to investigate offences against Islamic law, the department must explain the rationale for disrupting a non-Muslim wedding.

“The question is whether it was sensible for them to do so given the importance of the event,” he told The Malay Mail Online when contacted, observing that it was a wedding.

Nizam said he did not see any urgency, which he said made it unnecessary for the Islamic religious authority to intrude on the wedding and “embarrass” the family in such a manner.

“At the end of the day, a wedding between a Muslim and non-Muslim is not valid,” he said.

Last year, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) was reported to have said that a marriage between a Muslim and non-Muslim is “completely prohibited” and against the principle of beliefs of Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah — the prevailing Islamic philosophy in Malaysia.

Civil liberties lawyer Syahredzan Johan said Selangor’s religious authorities are empowered under state enactments to make arrests without warrants based on “reasonable suspicion”, but argued that it does not mean they should exceed “the boundaries of what is decent”.

“What you (Jais) have done is you had gone to the wedding, tried to stop it and you have all the people there. Why do you need to do that? Why do it when the wedding is about to take place? Why not later, or do it the normal way and call them to take a statement?

“This is an instance where Jais does what it pleases. It doesn’t care about the feelings of the people who are involved in the wedding, or the guests, and has no regard for what sort of perception this gives Islamic authorities in the country,” he said.

Syahredzan said this was not the first case where Jais had been overzealous and “arrogant” towards minority religions, pointing to the seizure of over 300 Malay ­— and Iban-language bibles from the Bible Society of Malaysia earlier this year and the raid on the Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) in 2011 on suspicion of proselytising among Muslims — a punishable offence under a state enactment.

“I think the state government needs to step in and establish standard operating procedures (SOP) to deal with such cases. Even the police has an SOP. Jais can’t go on as if they are invincible or immune to this sort of thing.

“If they are not willing to play ball, then the state legislative assembly should step in to formulate an SOP on how Jais can exercise its powers. They must remember that Jais gets its powers from the state assembly, it is not a divine right,” he said.

Nizam agreed that there appears to be a worrying trend of inter-religious cases that have fuelled angst between the different communities in the country, but cautioned against taking drastic action to address an issue that has yet to be clarified.

“We shouldn’t adopt knee-jerk reactions. What this case highlights is the need for more investigations to find out what actually caused the whole incident, then we can say this is the remedy to avoid it happening again.

“I would be more comfortable to say that there must be an inquiry first. It can be done internally, but then inform us (the public) of what is the cause of the issue. Until we ascertain the cause, we can’t really say what is the right remedy,” he said.

On Sunday, religious authorities detained Zarena Abdul Majid in the midst of her Hindu wedding ceremony at a temple in Shah Alam, on suspicion that she, as a Muslim, was marrying a non-Muslim according to non-Muslim rites.

Zarena had claimed that she and her siblings were secretly converted by her Muslim convert father when they were children, but they have long been practising Hindus since their father divorced their mother and abandoned the family over 20 years ago.

Jais deputy director Ahmad Zaki Arshad was earlier reported to have said they were investigating the case under Section 10 of the Shariah Criminal Enactment (Selangor) 1995, for insulting or bringing disrepute to Islam.

Ahmad Zaki, however, was later reported to have denied claims that they had raided the wedding, saying that they had only acted on public complaints and carried out a routine check as she had a Muslim name.