KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 — The continuing incidents of unilateral religious conversions of young children in Malaysia makes former minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz feel “not proud” to be Muslim.

The Padang Rengas MP stressed that there should not be any form of coercion from anyone to force people to convert to Islam as he weighed in, in Parliament, on the widely covered cases affecting two Hindu mothers Loh Siew Hong and M Indira Gandhi whose ex-husbands converted their children to Islam their permission.

“As a Muslim, I am not proud of this. For me, Islam is about being fair. And it’s not fair if one of the parents changes the religion of their child without the other parent’s permission.

“Don’t do to others what you don’t want others to do to you,” he was quoted saying by Free Malaysia Today while debating the King’s address in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.

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The unilateral conversion of Loh’s three children — a pair of 14-year-old twin girls and their 10-year-old brother — rekindled debate on the issue even though the Federal Court ruled in 2018 in Indira’s case that conversions require the consent of both parents.

Despite the top court’s landmark ruling, Perlis Mufti Datuk Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin defended the conversion of Loh’s three children last month, arguing that Islam fall under state jurisdiction and Perlis allows unilateral conversion.

To this, Nazri who was a former law minister, stressed that the Federal Constitution states that the words “parent or guardian” mean both parents or guardians — and that he “did not agree at all with the forced conversion of these children”.

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While he noted that the Federal Constitution states that Islam is the “religion of the Federation”, he says this means Muslims have a responsibility to ensure that the rights and interests of minorities are taken care of.

“While it’s true that 60 per cent [of Malaysians] are Muslims, and Islam is the religion of the Federation, this does not mean we can oppress minorities.

“I mean, these non-Muslims will be living in fear... Every time non-Muslim couples have a fight, after the argument, the husband can convert. And convert the children as well. There have been four or five cases like this already.

“That’s not fair. We are not taking care of the interests of the minorities. We cannot do that,” he was quoted saying.

Loh’s children were taken away from her in 2019 while she was hospitalised with injuries she claimed were inflicted by her former husband, Nagashwaran Muniandy, who converted to Islam and subsequently converted the couple’s three children in secret. He has been reported to be currently in prison for drug offences.

In December 2019, Loh obtained interim custody of her children pending her divorce, but her court case was delayed when the country went into Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020; she finally obtained an order granting her full and sole custody in March 2021.

On February 21 this year, Loh was finally reunited with her children after the High Court granted her a writ of habeas corpus for an immediate release of her three children from alleged unlawful detention.

In delivering his decision and allowing Loh’s application, Justice Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah said a December 2019 High Court interim ex-parte order and a March 2021 High Court final order which granted sole custody and full care of her children were still valid and enforceable.