By : QUEVILLE TO
KOTA KINABALU: The National
Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF) Commission on Sabah Affairs (COSA) has
urged the National Registration
Department to start correcting their errors in scores of MyKads of
Christians in Sabah who have been wrongfully classified as Muslims.
Chairman of COSA, Jerry
Dusing, said the federal cabinet’s decision to resolve the long-standing
dilemma of Christians in Sabah wrongly classified as Muslims in their MyKad
must be acted upon with urgency and should not be dragged on.
He stressed that this is
important, so that the Syariah Court is not forced to make any judgment or
order which may further complicate the problem.
“This is a step in the right
direction to avoid further confusion over the status of Bumiputera Christians
in Sabah,” said Dusing in a statement issued here.
COSA is also monitoring a
protracted dispute in the Kudat Syariah High Court which is hearing the case of
three Christians who have been forced by the NRD to prove in the Islamic courts
that they are not Muslims.
The case was mounted by a
53-year-old widow of Banggi ethnicity, Intim Lambatan, and her two adult
daughters, Norina Nuhudan, 28, and Listin Nuhudan, 22, after they were
arbitrarily classified as Muslims in their MyKad when all three are baptised
Christians belonging to the Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB) denomination.
The case is interesting
given that the Sabah Islamic Affair Department or Jabatan Hal Ehwal Agama Islam
Negeri Sabah (JHEAINS) has acknowledged that their names were not on the
department’s register and yet the NRD had classified them as such.
In a further twist, when the
error was pointed out, the NRD refused to rectify its mistake and asked Intim
to go the Kudat Syariah High Court for a declaration that she is not a Muslim.
The case came up for hearing
on Oct 29 but both JHEAINS and the NRD did not turn up, forcing a postponement.
The United Pasok Momogun
Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (Upko) has since jumped into the fray with its
president Bernard Dompok leading the charge and offering his assistance,
perhaps aware of the sensitivity of the case so close to general election and
the threatening public relations disaster for the BN.
However, the Upko chief’s
announcement last week that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had given the NRD
the go-ahead to rectify the errors instead of having to go through the Syariah
Court as had been insisted for decades was met with some contempt.
Technical glitches
Various government leaders
and departments involved are all now backing away from the controversy that has
been a festering sore in a state known for its religious tolerance and harmony.
After years of the
department saying otherwise, it fell to the man in charge of the NRD in Sabah,
Ismail Ahmad, to trot out the excuses and say the errors were caused by
“technical glitches.”
He said that for now, all
those spotting such ‘errors’ only need to go to his office and point it out for
it to be rectified on the spot.
Meanwhile, a Barisan
Nasional state representative has urged the department to formulate proper
guidelines so that officers can be guided accordingly in what may be regarded
as grey areas in amending erroneous MyKads, especially those that have
‘converted’ Christians to Muslims at NRD’s offices.
Tanjung Kapor assemblyman,
Teo Chee Kang said “it is fundamentally wrong for officers in NRD to require an
order issued by the Syariah Court for an application by a non-Muslim to amend
his or her religion which is inadvertently or mistakenly registered as
‘Islam’.”
“In such cases, by
making Syariah Court order a requisite
for an application to rectify a non-Muslim MyKad holder’s religion status
tantamount to requiring non-Muslims to surrender to the jurisdiction of the
Syariah Courts.
“Constitutionally, Syariah
Courts only have jurisdiction over citizens who subscribe to the Islamic
faith,” he said at the annual Christmas Candlelight gathering organised by the
Council of Churches of Kudat held at Dewan Tun Mustapha, Kudat.
In this respect, Teo who is
also Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secretary general said the decision of the
federal cabinet, as disclosed by Dompok that such rectification would not
involve the Syariah Courts and that it could be done at the NRD was a welcoming
news.
“Sabah is very unique in the
sense that it is so common for our non-Muslim natives to have a ‘bin’ or
‘binti’ in their names. Names are by no means an indicator of one’s religion. I
even know a Sabahan Muslim friend who possess a Christian name,” he said.
Prime Minister Najib is
currently in Sandakan to attend a meeting with Christian leaders.
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