The second ‘incident’ involved the question of religious freedom. The
issue was hotly debated in the last decade of the last century that spilled
over into the new millenium, especially in the light of rumors about a
large number of Muslims wanting to leave Islam and also in the light of
the existence of cults that were deemed to be contrary to Islamic orthodoxy
and the measures considered by the government to deal with the
situation, which was ‘The Faith Restoration Bill’. Conversions from
Islam to other religions have been few and far between. But there had
been cases of such conversion. Among the recent cases was that of Lina
Joy. She was born Azalina Jailani in 1964, to Muslim parents of
Javanese descent. She converted to Christianity at age 26. She changed
her name to Lina Joy. In 1997, she applied to the National Registration
Department to have her name and religious identity changed. The application
was rejected. But in 1998, the department allowed the name
change but not her religious status. Joy appealed against this decision in
the High Court which ruled that she could not change her religious identity,
because Malays are defined as Muslims under the Constitution. Joy
then took her case to Court of Appeal. She was not successful. Then she
further appealed to the Federal Court of Malaysia, the highest court and
the court of last resort in Malaysia. On May 30, 2007, the Federal Court
dismissed Joy’s appeal. The Court ruled that only the Syariah Court had
the power to allow Joy to remove her religious designation of Islam
from her national identity card. Joy wanted all this done because she
wanted to live openly as a Christian and marry her Christian fiancé,
which she could not do so long as she is regarded a Muslim. The only
other way she can marry a non-Muslim was to leave the country like
what Nur’aishah Bokhari did. Nur’aishah had since her conversion to
Christianity left the country and married her Roman Catholic boyfriend.
Most of other cases of conversions involved those who embraced Islam,
usually upon marrying a Muslim, and wishing to revert to their former
religion after the marriage failed.