Converts to non-Islamic faiths in Malaysia can be detained for more than three months in ‘Faith Purification Centres’, according to a report released in July.
And there are growing concerns that the impact of Shari’a courts and use of these camps could expand as strict Islam gains traction in the country.
Islamic penal code
In May the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party introduced a strict Islamic penal code, known as hudud law, to be debated in October, which would be applied to Muslims by Shari’a courts.
The Bill was introduced with the backing of the majority United Malays National Organisation, which heads the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.
Prime Minister Najib Razak has denied that the legislation would bring full implementation of hudud law, which calls for such punishments as stoning and amputation. However, opponents give little credence to his claim. Creeping Islamisation in Malaysia would mean more cases of violation of Islamic law, more power for Shari’a courts and more use of the re-education centres.
Kept secret
The number of detainees in the Islamic rehabilitation centres is kept secret, but the three centres probably do not hold more than 200 people at a time. One former detainee has managed to share her experience of being held at one of these centres.
The account, smuggled out of Malaysia and published in India, describes how she was taken from her workplace, interrogated and placed in one of the religious rehabilitation centres.
All this took place on the same day and without legal representation or court proceedings. When she asked for a lawyer, authorities told her she didn’t need one.
Supposedly there to be ‘re-educated,’ she was surprised to find nothing was actually taught, according to her account in Pearls of Great Price by R. Hunt (OM Press India 2010, reprinted 2014).
Write conversion story
The warden and staff quickly discovered that she knew more about Islam than they did, and instead of teaching anything, they tried to entice her back to Islam with the ‘charm approach’. ‘Folk Islam, with its attendant black magic, was in play here’, Hunt writes. Though the centre was filled with male drug addicts, she was an obedient and respectful prisoner.
After many months, the warden told her to write a description of her conversion to Christianity, instructing her to blame Christians for fraudulently or forcibly converting her.
Instead, she wrote the truth of genuinely placing her faith in Christ. The warden tore it up three times and then caned her, which she endured quietly. Several weeks later, she miraculously escaped during a rainstorm that knocked out electrical power.
Mohd Al Adib Samuri of the National University of Malaysia wrote in 2013 that detention in one of the three camps is ‘slowly gaining preference among Shari’a judges in Malaysia’ as an alternative to prison sentencing.
Leaving Islam
It is difficult to estimate the number of converts from Islam in Malaysia. An online newspaper reported that 863 people had applied to leave Islam from 2000 to 2010. During that period, 168 had been allowed to do so. Many of those requesting to leave Islam are not ethnic Malays but others, including persons who converted for marriage or other such reasons. The low rate of approval undoubtedly influences the application rate, which is extremely low for a country of 30 million people.
Article 160 of the Constitution dictates that all ethnic Malays are Muslim, and evan-gelisation of Malays is against the law.
Most of Malaysia’s states have enacted their own versions of Shari’a, and in ten of them leaving Islam is a crime.
All states have anti-apostasy laws except Sarawak. At least three states send potential apostates to the Islamic rehabilitation centres, where they can be held for 100 days to three years. Sharia courts determine the time and approve extensions.
The Shari’a court system is beyond the reach of civil legal procedures and courts in these cases. The laws, the Shari’a court system and the ‘re-education centres’ make conversion from Islam almost impossible to do legally in Malaysia.
Keeping identity cards
It appears that Malays who do change their beliefs do not attempt to change their identity cards.
Fear of re-education centres and persecution by their families force Malay Christians either to follow Jesus secretly or to move to Commonwealth countries such as Australia or New Zealand, where they can openly worship Jesus.
Lapsed Malay Muslims can be detained in Faith Purification Centres for 100 days, a period that can be extended by Shari’a courts.
