Author: PTI
Publication: Afternoon Despatch & Courier
Date: April 25, 2007
URL: http://cybernoon.com/DisplayArticle.asp?section=fromthepress&subsection=news&xfile=April2007_news_standard3587
A Malaysian court today agreed to quickly
hear a lawsuit filed by an ethnic Hindu Indian worker who has accused the
Islamic authorities of illegally detaining his wife and five children
A Malaysian court today agreed to quickly
hear a lawsuit filed by an ethnic Hindu Indian worker who has accused the
Islamic authorities of illegally detaining his wife and five children.
Islamic officials had detained Marimuthu Periasamy's
wife who is also an ethnic Indian and five of their children earlier this
month and sent them to a Malay Muslim village for religious rehabilitation
after deciding she was a Muslim and her marriage to a Hindu was illegal.
Periasamy's lawyers filed a suit on his behalf
last week asking the High Court in Selangor state to tell the state's Islamic
Department to produce the plantation worker's wife Raimah Bibi Noordin and
his children in court so they can be freed and united with him. The court
has scheduled a hearing for May 3.
Under Malaysia's Islamic laws any person who
wants to marry a Muslim must convert to Islam. Periasamy's wife was reportedly
adopted by an Indian Muslim family when she was young but she is a practicing
Hindu.
Her old identity card stated her religion
as Hindu but when she got it renewed earlier this year the religious column
stated her to be a Muslim. Muslims in this southeastern country are governed
by the Islamic laws while ethnic Indian and Chinese come under civil courts.
