PETALING JAYA: Muslims have the responsibility to safeguard the rights of minorities in order that they don’t really feel as if they’re being oppressed, says Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz.
Padang Rengas MP stated this when referring to the difficulty of unilateral conversion throughout his debate within the Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday (March 2).
Nazri stated they have the responsibility to be certain that the rights and interests of the minorities are taken care of.
“Some 60% of the country is Muslim and under the federal Constitution, Islam is the religion of the federation. But, that does not mean you can oppress the minority.
“If you don’t do what is supposed to be done, that means you are oppressing the minority.
“Non-Muslims will live in fear because every time there is a fight between non-Muslim husband and wife … they will convert,” he stated.
Nazri stated there have already been 4 to 5 such instances the place it ends in the conversion of youngsters with out the consent of the opposite mother or father.
Nazri identified {that a} father has no proper to change the faith of his youngsters with out the consent of the mom.
He stated this in reference to the unilateral conversion of single mom Loh Siew Hong’s three youngsters to Islam by her ex-husband.
“The father has no right to change the religion of his children unless he discusses it with his wife. If we allow the father to convert, then it is going to be a constructive conversion.
“This means we allow the conversion of a person without the approval of the mother. It is important that we do not allow this,” he advised the Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday (March 3).
He added that the frequent utilization of the time period “parents” is “father and mom”, not “father or mom”.
“Even in Bahasa Malaysia, we do not say it as mother and father, we say mother-father (ibubapa). This means unilateral conversion is not allowed,” he stated.
Nazri stated in Islam, they can not power anybody to convert to their faith.
“To believe in Islam, there has to be freewill. If there is no evidence of freewill, then it shows that it is forced. Those conversions, we cannot accept,” he stated.
He additionally identified that the difficulty of these beneath 18 not having a faith doesn’t come up because the younger ones develop up with the frequent faith of their mother and father.
He cited incidents when he was younger the place he was inspired to quick when he was between the ages of 5 to six years outdated, including that he was additionally taught to pray 5 instances a day and had additionally gone to the mosque.
“This means that every human, including children, already has a religion. What is the religion? It is the common religion of the parents when they get married,” he stated.
Nazri added that Islam additionally prioritises justice.
He lamented the conversion of Indira Gandhi’s youngsters again then, who have been additionally unilaterally transformed.
“As a Muslim, I am not proud of this. It is not fair if a father or mother changes the religion of their children. Don’t do to others what you don’t want others to do to you,” he stated.
