KUCHING: Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Public Complaints Bureau chief Wilfred Yap hoped that policies made by the respective government bodies be made public so that the people would know what to do when they are faced with problems.
When contacted by New Sarawak Tribune, Yap said he was not courting controversy on the subject but to merely point out that there were many such cases which were not solved and that many converts were in a “limbo” state.
“Thus, this issue must be solved to help these people who are “stuck,” he said.
Yap added that he was disappointed with some government agencies which do not provide proper guidelines to the public and in the latest case which he took up, which was where a Chinese Muslim convert wanted to return to her original Buddhist faith.
He said that the woman wanted her conversion to Islam be reversed and for her identity card and official records to reflect that she is a Buddhist which was her original religion. She converted to Islam in 1990 in Brunei to enable the registration of her marriage to a Muslim man from Sabah.
However, the marriage fell apart in 1993 and they divorced without any children.
The woman subsequently returned to Kuching and got married to a Chinese man in 1996 when the marriage was duly registered and a marriage certificate issued. The woman bored four children from her marriage with the Chinese man who is a Buddhist.
Yap pointed out that the problem facing the woman was that the birth certificates of her two youngest children did not bear the name of their Chinese father while their religion was stated as Islam. She wanted her children to be listed under the name of their biological father.
The woman had on many occasions tried unsuccessfully to obtain a letter of her release from Islam, a document required by the National Registration Department to amend her religious status in official records.
“The Federal Court had in February 2018 ruled that there wasn’t a provision within Sarawak’s Syariah Court Ordinance to deal with apostasy.
“After the Federal Court’s ruling, Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg had previously pledged to resolve the problem and to plug loopholes through amendments to the state’s laws on conversion and providing an administrative solution.
“This is because Muslim converts wishing to leave the religion face a difficult battle as the law is silent on matters of conversion out of Islam,” Yap said.
He hoped that the Sarawak government will urgently conduct a comprehensive study on the current law regarding the issue and also speed up the process on amending laws to provide clear guidelines and a standard operating procedure for would-be apostates who converted for marriage in Sarawak but decided to renounce Islam upon divorce or after the death of their spouse.
He added that the wish of many people is to see fair and just policies concerning all Sarawakians.
Yap also urged Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas who is minister-in-charge of the Unit for Other Religions in Sarawak (Unifor) to help pursue the matter in the state Cabinet.
