The bitter struggle for religious freedom
Claudia Theophilus Jul 23, 05 Malaysiakini
Ustazah Kamariah Ali and her husband, Ustaz Mohamed Ya, taught upper secondary students religious studies. Both were graduates of the world-renowned Al-Azhar University in Egypt.
Kamariah’s first posting was in Sarawak. It was also her husband’s first posting. Five years later, in 1988, both were transferred to Kampar, Perak, and taught there for more than four years. The husband and wife were later sent to religious schools for boys and girls respectively in Kota Baru.
The couple’s after-school routine was to join a group of Malay-Muslims in prayer and singing praises from village to village in Kelantan.
But they were not singing praises to Allah. The object of their religious fervour was a 64-year-old ethnic Malay man known to followers as Ayah Pin, who claims to be the reincarnation of the holy figures in the world’s major religions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.
Deviant practices
Soon their activities caught the attention of the Kelantan state and religious authorities who tracked them down and detained several members at Balai Islam, Kota Baru.
“We were hauled to Balai Islam, which also houses the Syariah Court, on the pretext of discussing something with us,” said Kamariah, who is 53 and currently unemployed. “We were not given any food or drinks. We also didn’t know what we had done wrong that night.”
The next morning, they were taken to the Syariah High Court and ordered top lead guilty to charges of deviant practices.
“We claimed trial and were locked up for two nights. Luckily, my bail of RM2,000 was accepted as I had a small child to feed,” said Kamariah, otherwise known as Mama in the village where she lives - Kampung Batu 13, Hulu Besut - a small hamlet across the border in Terengganu about 110km south of Kota Baru.
In 1992, the couple, along with Mat Yaacob Ismail, 51, and Daud Mamat, 73, were convicted for deviant practices and sentenced to jail.
Mohamed died in October last year, 10 months after his release from prison. Upon appeal, their conviction was upheld but the jail sentence was commuted. However, they were required to report monthly to the nearest religious office and attend religious classes for five years until repentance is pronounced.
They went twice but stopped after being told that the ‘repentance schedule’ was not prepared. They resumed their daily activities and continued to be harassed by the state and religious authorities.
In August 1998, the four separately renounced Islam through a statutory declaration and subsequently in late 2000, were charged again, this timefor attempting to leave the religion. At the same time, they were found guilty of failing to attend repentance classes and jailed three years in Pengkalan Chepa prison for contempt of court.
From then on, the process was one of appeals and more appeals right up until the Federal Court.
On Wednesday, a five-member Bench unanimously ruled that the four still have to face the Syariah Court for religious offences committed prior to renouncing Islam, thus extinguishing their hopes of enjoying the religious freedom guaranteed by Article 11 of the Federal Constitution.
The legal team is currently preparing to file for a review of the decision. The surviving trio returned to Terengganu on Thursday morning. For them, nothing has changed - it is back to square one.
Bitter struggle
The story of Mohamed, Kamariah, Yaacob and Daud is full of bitterness and frustration.
Kamariah lost her teaching job while in prison where she was served her termination letter. The couple was also ostracised by their families, colleagues and neighbours.
“We were pressured to stop our involvement in what the authorities saw as deviant teachings. My headmistress friend also scolded me for dabbling in such activities.”
On her release from prison, the petite, soft-spoken lady with a sweet disposition was downgraded to handling student admissions. “I was doing clerical work for seven years, failed on my job performance and had no salary increment.”
Her late husband, Mohamed, ended up teaching lower secondary classes but his salary was not affected.
“The authorities continuously shadowed us. Our every movement and activity during and after school hours was monitored,” added Kamariah.
“The most bitter experience is the hostility shown by my half-siblings, my blood sister, stepmother and extended family. They simply stopped visiting us and the children.
“While people were generally nice to us, our family said nasty things behind our backs. I didn’t like it so I severed all ties with them. Nowwe only see them at the occasional social functions.”
Firm about her decision to renounce Islam in 1998, she believes people should be left to practice their chosen beliefs instead of being forced to “just because the law says so”.
“I’m sad at the way we were treated by our own government. I still believe we didn’t do anything wrong. To this day, I still can’t comprehend the situation we are in.”
Mohamed’s grave, fenced and covered by a striped red-yellow roof, stands in a quiet corner of the village in Terengganu's Hulu Besut, with words of courage and inspiration for others to keep on struggling for religious freedom.
Expressing their disappointment in the legal system, the three reiterated that they “only wanted the freedom to worship God”.
“Why should we be limited in our worship of God?” Kamariah asked. “Icouldn’t understand what the fuss was all about.”
Public humiliation
For instance, she said, they were once publicly humiliated at an official function for distributing wang ehsan ('goodwill money' granted by the federal government to Terengganu instead of oil royalty payments) by the local elected representative.
“After handing us the voucher, the state assemblyperson quickly took it back announcing that as apostates, we were not entitled to the money,”she added. “There was nothing we could do but bear the humiliation amid hundreds of people.”
Hulu Besut state assemblyperson, Nawi Mohamad, could not be reached forcomments over this particular incident.
For Daud, the experience was senseless and exhausting.
“Only my wife and three children visited me in prison,” he said, relatinghis solitary life in Pengkalan Chepa prison. “No one else came.”
But he was very thankful to neighbours in Kampung Batu 13, who were followers of Ayah Pin, for looking out for his family during his incarceration.
“In prison, I just wanted to be left alone but one of the warders liked poking fun at me. One day, I found my name changed on the notice board to a Siamese name. He told me that as an apostate, I should not bear a Muslim (commonly Arabic) name.”
Daud’s wife, Wan Mariam Wan Yaakob, 40, said she used to sell goreng pisang (fried bananas) to make ends meet but was soon forced to close shop when business turned bad due to the adverse publicity spread by word of mouth.
“We had to stop our eldest child who was in Form 2 from school after my husband was jailed. It was too hard to make ends meet,” she recalled. Now, she makes gula melaka (palm sugar) at a nearby cottage enterprise.
“My husband renounced Islam 15 years into our marriage. I have no problems with that. It’s just that the harassment from the authorities was often too much to bear.”
Traitor tag
Yaacob, however, is bitter and angry about the whole thing. “I lost my grocery business and my young children had to stop schooling after I wasjailed.” He was visibly upset, fidgeting in his chair.
“We had to leave behind thousands of ringgit worth of property when we came here after serving jail time.” His two older children had dropped out of school but the four younger ones are still schooling.
To him, renouncing Islam was a natural thing to do.
“Our struggle for the freedom to choose our own faith had cost us a lot.. a reasonably good life, money, friends and family,” said Yaacob, who is fondly known as Pa’acob.
For choosing his own path of worshipping God, Yaacob was labeled many things including “traitor”.
“Over the years, we’ve learnt to live with the hostile reactions because it is something you can’t possibly avoid,” he said, shaking his head sadly.
To this day, the three claim to be in the dark as to what crime they had purportedly committed.
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