losingfaith

This article is a preview from the Spring 2020 edition of New Humanist

Dressed in a crisp green shirt, Amirul Dawi was ready to celebrate Raya, the Malaysian shorthand for the sacred Hari Raya Aidilfitri or Eid festival. Like every year, he feasted with his family to mark the end of a gruelling fasting month. Only this time, he went public with a decision so agonising he had hidden it for years: Amirul was no longer a Muslim.

The death threats that followed his post on social media were disturbing but mostly anonymous, so he let them slide. It was the unexpected messages of support that lingered. “I was surprised there were other in-the-closet ex-Muslims wanting to find a community. My post somehow brought them together,” said Amirul, an atheist in his mid-20s who lives in Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur.

Few dare to express themselves so boldly. Apostasy is not a federal crime in the multi-religious south-east Asian nation. But the Muslim majority are subject to state-enforced Islamic laws on faith and family matters, as well as national civil law, under a dual legal system. In some parts of the country, apostates can be jailed, detained at so-called rehabilitation centres, whipped or fined. Punishments vary by state and are seldom enforced, but together with the deep social stigma of renouncing Islam, they serve as a powerful deterrent to prevent former Muslims from going public.

The number of known atheists in Malaysia is tiny: the latest Freedom of Thought Report by Humanists International estimates that only around one per cent identify as non-religious in a population also home to Buddhist, Christian and Hindu minorities. Yet the backlash to atheism has been severe. A photo of a small atheist gathering in Kuala Lumpur in 2017 went viral on social media, as Islamic hardliners demanded action against the former Muslims. It prompted a minister under the previous Barisan Nasional government to say atheists should be “hunted down” and “re-educated”; another called for their prosecution. Less widely reported were the voices of Muslim lawyers who argued that Malaysia’s constitution guarantees not just freedom of, but also freedom from, religion. A thorny debate was revived that pitted religion against secularism under the contentious dual legal system, a direct legacy of British colonial rule. It also gave rise to fresh concerns about rising Islamic orthodoxy, and the challenge it poses to Malaysia’s long-celebrated religious pluralism and now, non-religious identities too.

Amirul identifies as a liberal Malay millennial. He is acutely aware of the risks he courts with his views. According to Malaysia’s constitution, to be Malay – the majority ethnic group – is to be Muslim: a person’s religion is a legal as well as a personal identity. But while Amirul no longer believes in Islam, he still feels culturally Malay. He says his disclosure was “about the right to dissent” as much as it was about being true to himself. We need “open discussions about atheism, agnosticism, or just leaving religion without being treated as a threat to Islam”, he says. Atheism may be niche in Malaysia, but Amirul’s call for dialogue is part of a broader movement urging human rights reforms. Younger generations in particular are hungry for more open conversations on race, religion, gender and sexuality, topics that were once deemed off-limits.

It’s a mood boosted by the landmark May 2018 election. Malaysians voted out a regime that had ruled the country for the 61 years since independence from Britain. Hopes were high for a new era free of authoritarianism, as the new coalition campaigned on an agenda of reform. Just a few weeks later, talk of “Malaysia baru” or “the new Malaysia”, a popular post-polls catchphrase, prompted a debate on morality between atheists and Christians at a sprawling white Baptist church outside Kuala Lumpur. Navin Innasi, a 31-year-old estate agent, took to the stage first to argue that humanity could be good without a god. It’s a position his Christian family are unhappy with but one he has felt free to express, largely, he points out, because as an ethnic Indian he’s exempt from the Islamic laws that can silence ex-Muslims. For years, atheists in Malaysia have relied on secret Facebook groups to form communities. But the onslaught of abuse fuelled by the photographed meet-up in 2017 saw Innasi and others launch a public platform, Malaysian Atheists & Secular Humanists, to support the faithless. The group is deliberately growing slowly, he says, to vet newcomers and prevent vigilantes targeting former Muslims. Though Innasi felt a sliver of “optimism” for rights reforms after the election, he says “the backlash from conservatives has been a lot stronger as a result”.

Malaysia’s four-party coalition is led by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. The 94-year-old is back as premier for a second stint, coming out of retirement to bring the country’s first truly multi-ethnic government to power after decades of dominance by Malay Muslim nationalism. The coalition has been praised for cracking down on the corruption that toppled the previous government, boosting press freedoms and making appointments such as the first non-Malay attorney general, welcomed by liberals in a country with sizeable ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities. But the government has also been criticised for back-pedalling or moving too slowly on promised human rights reforms. As Innasi predicted, the opposition has focused on framing the leadership as too liberal, too multicultural and a threat to the conservative Muslim majority. It has in turn inspired some members of the coalition to brandish their own orthodox positions, pushing ethnicity and religion to the forefront of Malaysian politics once again.

The result is an unsettling climate for Malaysia’s minorities. Ismail Abdullah was late to the controversial atheist meet a few years ago. “Thankfully I missed the photo,” said the 30-year-old of the image that “outed” others. A part-time taxi driver from north-west Malaysia, Ismail has successfully hidden his atheism from his family for more than a decade. He acknowledges that atheists are safer in Malaysia than Bangladesh, for example, where ex-Muslims have been brutally hacked to death on crowded streets. But he still lowers his voice when speaking about the risks faced by “murtads”, the Malay word for apostates. “We fear the abuse of power by unchecked religious authorities,” says Ismail, who has seen fellow atheists suffer from moral policing by the expanding Islamic bureaucracy. “Distant relatives or sometimes neighbours will report those they find suspicious,” he says. While the new government isn’t directly targeting atheists, it hasn’t reformed the country’s powerful religious institutions as some voters had hoped. “Religion should be a personal matter,” Ismail says. “Muslims too should be able to freely leave. But it’s virtually impossible.”

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Yet there is a way to legally leave Islam in Malaysia. It’s one of the only countries in the world to offer such a route, said a Kuala Lumpur-based expert, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions. The process is highly controversial and those who embark on it face a lengthy and complex court battle. The numbers pursuing it are tiny, and their chances of success slim. According to government figures, between 2000 and 2010 Malaysia’s sharia courts received 863 applications to leave Islam, granting permission to only 168 people.

Some Muslims are more likely to succeed than others. Umar Idham is an atheist who converted to Islam for marriage – Malaysian law doesn’t permit Muslims to wed non-Muslims. Now divorced and in a new relationship with a Hindu woman he wants to marry, Umar is trying to leave the faith. He explains that his success hinges on managing the sensitivities surrounding Islam. “You cannot really leave Islam in Malaysia,” he says. “We’re arguing my initial conversion is not valid, that I never became Muslim in the first place.” The long-drawn-out process to remove the word “Islam” from his compulsory identity card and extricate himself from Islamic laws has already taken several years. At first, Umar even struggled to find a sharia lawyer to fight his case – few want an association with apostasy – but eventually he found one willing to help. “My lawyer was clear: go under the radar, follow the system, be quiet and it will work out.”

A 2014 study found that Negeri Sembilan in southwest Malaysia was the only one of the country’s 13 states with a clear legal provision for Muslims seeking to leave the faith. There are others that accept applications to leave Islam without clear laws, while some outright criminalise apostasy. The study showed that the vast majority of applicants to leave Islam were, like Umar, ethnically Indian – they had converted to Islam as adults or were born into the religion by convert parents. These newer converts had the best shot at leaving the faith. But even then, permission only came after a lengthy consultation and counselling period intended to bring them back to Islam. Between 1998 and 2013, only 37 of 219 cases were approved, according to the research published in the Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations journal. It found that permission was never granted on the basis of freedom of religion but usually on judgements that applicants were not practising Islam. Most applicants were still in the consultation phase with religious authorities, in a system whose primary objective was to prevent future cases of apostasy.

The biggest test for the right to freedom of religion in Malaysia is the freedom granted to those born Malay. A Malay apostate, as opposed to a convert, is seen as a far greater threat to the sanctity of Islam. Human rights lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar has been on the frontline of this debate. More than a decade ago, he represented Lina Joy in a seminal case. During the trial, Joy, a Malay-born Muslim who converted to Christianity and sought to leave Islam, was forced into hiding while Malik was subjected to death threats. The case “became a useful focal point for political Islamists to further their political agenda”, said Malik, pointing to how “Islam had become political currency” ever since the state-backed policies that began in the 1980s helped expand Islamic jurisprudence and create a “monolithic form” of the faith.

Joy eventually lost her case as the country’s top civil court ruled that it was only a sharia court that could permit a Muslim to leave Islam, acknowledging the constitutional guarantee to freedom of religion, but ultimately rendering it illusory.

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The high-profile verdict showcased the limits to freedom of religion in Malaysia, and cemented the idea that Malay identity is inextricable from Islam. But it has not stopped other renouncers from turning to a civil court, where they hope for a fairer hearing. In April 2018 four Muslim-turned-Christians in eastern Malaysia lost their civil appeal to leave the faith, as a judge ruled they must go to the sharia court. But Muslim-born Malaysians find themselves in a paradoxical bind, as the International Commission of Jurists expressed in a paper last year: “Even as state laws permit the act of renunciation of one’s religion, these laws exist in clear contradiction of apostasy laws that criminalise renunciation.” The case of Revathi Masoosai is a stark reminder of what can happen: on applying to change her religion from Islam to Hinduism in a sharia court in 2007, she was immediately detained for six months at a rehabilitation centre to restore her faith.

The legal hurdles to leave Islam are not worth the risk for most atheists, says Riana Idris. The once devout Muslim also recently came out as non-religious to her mother. She says that atheism is viewed as a new conundrum across religious groups in Malaysia, a country where faith plays such an important role. Most prominent court cases were brought by ex-Muslims who sought the freedom to embrace another religion, rather than no religion. But Riana thinks it’s high time Malaysia respected the right of its citizens to choose their own path – a new faith or no faith. Speaking after work at a café in central Kuala Lumpur, she said: “It’s not about being anti-Islam. I would defend the right of Muslims in many, many ways the moment I find out that their rights are being oppressed. It’s about freedom of belief.”

Calls for the reform of Islamic law are also coming from influential Muslim voices, who are challenging the use of Islam to defend practices such as child marriage or anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. In January, G25, a group of prominent Malay ex-civil servants, published a report about the administration of Islam in Malaysia, including rare criticism of the country’s apostasy laws. The constitutional right to freedom of religion, the report said, applied to all Malaysians – Muslim or non-Muslim – so those who wished to leave Islam should not be punished. Some orthodox quarters branded the group as deviant and called for it to be investigated. While most Muslim jurists in Malaysia still say that apostasy is a crime punishable by death, the religious argument too is under debate. There are Muslim academics who say there is no compulsion in Islam and a person cannot be forced to practise the religion.

Azam Mohamed Adil, deputy CEO of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies, recalls that prior to the 1980s, Malaysians who wished to change their religion did so by deed poll and a declaration of their new name in the newspaper. “It was much more fluid,” said Azam, whose research has focused on conflicts between sharia and civil law. He thinks Muslims who wish to leave the faith ought to be given counselling, but beyond that their decision should be honoured “as the bulk of applicants are Muslims by conversion”. Pointing out key passages in a well-thumbed copy of Malaysia’s constitution, he says: “Islam is the religion of the Federation. But Malaysia also offers freedom of religion. Ultimately this (the constitution) is the supreme law of the land.”

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The new government has sent mixed signals on its commitment to human rights, especially when it challenges Islamic law. The public caning of two Malaysian women in 2018 for attempting to have sex prompted unexpected condemnation from the PM. In a video message posted on social media, Prime Minister Mahathir said the sharia court’s sentence ran counter to the “compassion of Islam”. But just a few weeks later he rejected the idea of LGBTQ+ rights. Soon after the election, Mahathir had called for a review into Malaysia’s powerful federal Islamic agency. But nearly two years on it is unclear what stage the review has reached. The more recent surge in LGBTQ+ persecution by religious authorities has been met by silence from the government, which appears unwilling to field growing attacks from an emboldened conservative opposition claiming to represent Malay Muslims.

In this political climate, expanding religious freedoms to Muslims is a low priority, Amirul suggests. Thankfully for him, life has resumed its usual beat. “Everything has calmed down drastically,” he said, several months after his controversial post. The threats and abuse have ceased and he is back on speaking terms with his family. Amirul also feels lucky to have found a level of acceptance. “They acknowledged I’m not practising Islam any more,” he says. His hope is for others who seek it to one day experience the same freedom – with a state that backs them. “But I think that’s still a long way to go for the new Malaysia.”

Some names have been changed.

A few weeks after this article was published, Malaysia's new multiethnic coalition collapsed. After a shock resignation from Mahathir Mohamad in February, Muhyiddin Yassin was appointed as the new prime minister. He has joined hands with the old ruling UMNO party and the Islamist party PAS, taking Malaysia back to an agenda that favours the Malay Muslim majority.