ACT FAST ON MYKAD FIASCO

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.