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Tan never
a Muslim,
rules Syariah
Appeals Court
by Opalyn Mok
newsdesk@thesundaily.com
GEORGE TOWN: The Syariah Appeals
Court ruled yesterday that Siti Fatimah Tan
Abdullah had never been a Muslim as her
conversion to Islam was not valid.
In the unanimous decision read out by
Justice Datuk Ibrahim Lembut, the court
declared that Siti Fatimah aka Tan Ean
Huang could not be considered a Muslim
and therefore was not an apostate.
“This is because the process of her
conversion to Islam was not complete,” he
said, adding that when Tan, 40, took the Sya-
hadah oath, it was not with full sincerity but
only with the intention to marry a Muslim.
“Based on her testimony and the testi-
monies heard in court that she had never
practised the religion and had continued
praying at Buddhist temples even after
her conversion in 1998, we feel that her
conversion to Islam right from the beginning
was not valid.”
He said it was against the religion and an
offence for a Muslim to become an apostate.
“However, this is not the issue here as we
find that she was never a Muslim, thus the
issue of her being an apostate does not
arise,” Ibrahim said, when handing down the
decision by the three-man panel which also
comprised Datuk
Muhammad Asri
Abdullah and
Datuk Abu Bakar
Ahmad.
Ibrahim took
45 minutes to
read out the
grounds for
dismissing the
state Islamic Af-
fairs Council’s
Tan and counsel Ahmad
appeal against a
landmark deci-
Jailani Abdul Ghani.
sion in May last
year by Syariah
High Court judge Othman
Ibrahim who declared Tan a non-Muslim and
allowed her to leave Islam.
In upholding that decision, Ibrahim
said the other issue raised by the council
as to whether the Syariah court had the
jurisdiction to declare that a person was a
non-Muslim or not was no longer relevant
as the court had found that Tan was not a
Muslim from the start.
Tan told reporters outside the court that
she would give thanks at a temple near her
home when she returned to Nibong Tebal.
Meanwhile, counsel for the council,
Ahmad Munawir Abdul Aziz said the Syariah
Appeals Court’s decision had “removed the
fear among the Muslim community that
conversion may be subjected to abuse”.
He said this also showed that one could
not just convert out of Islam and that it was
an offence to convert out of the religion.
“The grounds for the decision has removed
the misconception that one is entitled to
freely convert out of Islam,” he said.
Tan filed applications to renounce Islam
in May 2006. She converted in July 1998 to
marry an Iranian but he left her a few months
after their marriage. The case had dragged
on in the Syariah court since 2006.
Member of Audit Bureau of Circulations (Malaysia)
» Brunei drops Limbang claim pg2
Gobind suspended
a year
by Giam Say Khoon
newsdesk@thesundaily.com
UALA LUMPUR: The
K
Dewan Rakyat yesterday
suspended Gobind Singh
Deo for a year without
allowance and benefits for insult-
ing Deputy Prime Minister Datuk
Seri Najib Razak by linking him
to the Altantuya murder case in
the House last week.
Minister in the Prime Min-
ister’s Department Datuk Seri
Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz moved
a motion under Standing Order
27(1) immediately after Question
Time, requesting the suspension
of the DAP member for Puchong
whose accusation had not only
insulted Najib but also Deputy
Speaker Datuk Ronald Kiandee
who ordered Gobind to leave the
chamber last Thursday.
Gobind had asked Najib last
week to respond to an alleged
statement by a police officer that
despite being an important wit-
ness, his statement was not taken
to facilitate the murder investi-
gation. When he was ordered to
leave the House by Kiandee, he
told the deputy speaker that “you
should be ashamed of yourself”.
In the motion, Nazri said
the allegation was serious, and
had breached the rights and
privileges of an MP and was in
contempt of the House.
Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar
Amin Mulia said he approved the
motion for debate as he wanted
to ensure all MPs learned to
“behave” after this incident.
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TELLING IT AS IT IS
He said he had read the
Hansard account of what
happened last Thursday and
found that Gobind had breached
Standing Orders for imputing
improper motives to another
member, for using offensive
language, for mentioning the
conduct and character of a
member in another capacity,
for mentioning a matter which
was sub judice, for using sedi-
tious words and words likely to
promote feelings of ill-will against
the government and between
different communities.
Many opposition MPs reacted
by citing points of order, with
some saying there was not
enough notice given for the de-
bate and also whether the matter
was of public interest. The argu-
ments took up 45 minutes, but
the Speaker allowed the debate
(see page 6 for related report).
Later, as Nazri was winding
up, the opposition MPs walked
out. The motion was approved
at 1pm after government back-
benchers voted for it.
Gobind is the first MP to
be suspended so long without
allowance and benefits. He has
been kicked out of the House
three times since he became an
MP last March (see box).
He told reporters at parlia-
ment lobby later that he was
disappointed with the decision.
“He (Najib) was in the House
and I asked him to explain. That’s
all I did. As an MP, it is my duty
to ask questions and I did not do
anything wrong as it is our right
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No. 4717 PP 2644/12/2009 (023092)
Tuesday
March 17, 2009
www.sun2surf.com
» Kring’s Heroes pg20
Suspended again ... Gobind pays a
heavy price for his defiance.
as an MP to seek clarifications.”
He said he will continue to “fight
from outside”.
Nazri told a press conference that
the motion did not raise the ques-
tion of immunity because immunity
applied only when an MP was
brought to court for sedition.
He said Gobind’s statement was
made in bad faith because he had
refused to repeat the statement
outside the House.
“We did not want to refer the
case to the privileges committee
because we have the evidence in
(the) Hansard; therefore we do not
need to go into committee to probe
the case which will come back to
us for debate,” he said, adding that
a 12-month suspension was a fair
punishment as Gobind insulted not
just an MP but the deputy prime
minister,” Nazri said.
“If no action is taken, it means it
is true (what Gobind had said). If we
take action later, he will say why no
action was taken when he said it the
first time,” he said.
Entertainment
ZULKIFLI ERSAL/THESUN
EPF declares
4.5%
dividend
KUALA LUMPUR: The Employees
Provident Fund (EPF) has declared a
dividend of 4.5% for 2008, lower than
the 5.8% in 2007.
The lower dividend rate is due to
the increase in investment provision-
ing resulting from the sharp decline
in global equity prices brought about
by the worldwide financial crisis, the
pension fund said in a statement
yesterday.
Despite the financial meltdown, the
EPF recorded the highest ever earn-
ings of RM20 billion in gross income
for 2008, compared with RM18.29
billion the year before.
“While the year 2008 was challeng-
ing due to the unprecedented global
financial crisis that has impacted
economies worldwide, EPF’s invest-
ment portfolio for the year performed
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