Some really stupid happenings in Malaysia which showed the world how idiotic we are

Since every other bloggers are blogging about the Taiwan quake and the affected dotcoms etc, I am not going to blog about that. If you want to read about that you can go here, here and here. Inter-faith issues have been hogging the limelight in 2006 following a widely debated question as to whether they fell under the jurisdiction of the Civil or Syariah courts.

Here are some of the cases, not in particular orders:
1. The Lina Joy case became the talk of the town and created tension in this multi-racial country. Lina, whose real name is Azlina Jailani, sought a court order to have the word 'Islam' deleted from her identity card to enable her to register her marriage at the civil registry after renouncing the Islamic faith.

She managed to get her name changed in her identity card but her religion remained as Islam in her identity card.

2. The conflict on the Article 121(A) of the Federal Constitution also surfaced in the case of Mount Everest climber Sgt M Moorthy or Muhammad Abdullah when his widow S Kaliammal and the Federal Territories Religious Department (Jawi) were enganged in a tussle over his burial which created dissatisfaction among certain groups.

Moorthy, who died on Dec 20, was finally buried by Jawi on Dec 28 following the Syariah High Court's decision that he was a Muslim, while the High Court ruled that it had no power to intervene in the decision. The case has yet to come up for review in the Court of Appeal.

3. Another case of almost similar nature involved van driver A Rayappan. The MAIS claimed he embraced Islam in 1990 and that his body must be buried according to Islamic rites. However, his family protested, claiming that Rayappan renounced Islam nine years later and had returned to Christianity. MAIS brought the issue before the Syariah Court but later decided to withdraw its case, and Rayappan's body was returned to his family who quickly cremated it and his ashes were buried at the Catholic cemetry in Cheras according to Christian rites.

4. Another case that stirred public interest involved three pupils - Meor Atiqulrahman Ishak and brothers Syed Abdullah Khaliq Aslamy Syed Ahmad Johari and Syed Ahmad Syakur - who were expelled from school for refusing to take off their turban.

*So much for the 'kebebasan beragama' rights in Malaysia. Like what I studied in Tamadun Islam dan Tamadun Asia, I thought they always banggakan "Agama Islam tidak memaksa" here.

Now the question is, does the court has the right to judge a person's religion?