I am referring to Harussani Zakaria, the infamous mufti of Perak of course. It all began with the accusation in Penang about how during a Friday prayer sermon, Lim Guan Eng’s name was mentioned instead of the King. He said that it is haram or forbidden for a Muslim to pray for the well-being of a non-Muslim. Is this what Islam teaches its adherents? I cannot imagine for one moment that this is so unless he knows something that we the Non-Muslim do not?
Speaking as a Christian, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for them. This is so far remove from what the good mufti is telling us. To me as a khafir in his eye, I do not amount much and certainly not worthy of his time and prayer. And I thought that all this while that Islam stands for peace but this mufti really debunk this myth.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
By Ivan Ho
LAHAD DATU: A senior doctor here has warned that a citizenship-for-rent scam is enabling pregnant foreigners to receive heavily subsidised medical treatment in the state.
Lahad Datu Hospital director Dr Tan Hee Ting said that some of these women eventually deliver their babies in the hospital and register their newborns as local citizens.
He said district hospital staff had uncovered the scam by foreign patients, especially expectant mothers who were using local identity document to register for hospital treatment.
Tan revealed that the hospital’s staff became suspicious when a number of pregnant foreign women came back with the same local couple’s identification cards to register for prenatal as well as postnatal treatment.
"Some of them panicked and told the staff who questioned them that they had rented the identification cards from a local card holder for a small sum of money so that they can enjoy cheaper hospital fees as local," he said.
Tan said that although the hospital staff are required to prudently account for stocks of medicines as well as its facilities and expenses, the patient registration system, however, allows for abuse.
He said once the patients were accepted as locals, they are granted all the privileges that come with the status such as heavily subsidised treatment and stay at the hospital.
The hospital maternity ward’s fee for foreign women can go as high as RM1,000 while locals pay only RM30.
Said Tan: "There are cases of foreign women using someone else’s husband’s MyKad to register.
"Once they are registered as locals in the hospital, their babies when born can register as Sabahans.
"We have been reporting all such cases to the police for further action... I can’t recall the exact number of cases over the years, but it is a lot."
Tan made the comments when asked to reveal how many foreigners were being admitted for treatment and at what cost.
Burgeoning foreign population
Tan said around 35% of the pregnant women registered with the maternity ward yearly are expectant mothers from neighbouring countries.
Most seem to fall into the illegal immigrant bracket as registered foreign workers are not charged a high fee for treatment.
Under the Plantation Workers Act, foreign workers who produce a GL (guaranteed letter) from their employers at the hospital registration counter need only pay RM5 to enjoy the hospital’s medical services, Tan said.
Sabah has the highest number of foreigners seeking medical services due to its burgeoning foreign population.
According to government statistics, for every hundred patients registered at the various hospitals around the state, about a third are foreigners. Most are unable to pay their bills.
However, it was not all gloom for the district hospital which received a shot-in-the-arm from a charitable organisation.
The hospital was gifted with two haemodialysis machines and got a facelift for its forensic lab by the Che Yee Khor Moral Uplifting Society.
The hospital currently has 12 such machines and there are 48 diabetic patients who have to use them, Tan said.
Also present at the handing-over ceremony were Silam Member of Parliament, Salleh Kalbi.
LAHAD DATU: A senior doctor here has warned that a citizenship-for-rent scam is enabling pregnant foreigners to receive heavily subsidised medical treatment in the state.
Lahad Datu Hospital director Dr Tan Hee Ting said that some of these women eventually deliver their babies in the hospital and register their newborns as local citizens.
He said district hospital staff had uncovered the scam by foreign patients, especially expectant mothers who were using local identity document to register for hospital treatment.
Tan revealed that the hospital’s staff became suspicious when a number of pregnant foreign women came back with the same local couple’s identification cards to register for prenatal as well as postnatal treatment.
"Some of them panicked and told the staff who questioned them that they had rented the identification cards from a local card holder for a small sum of money so that they can enjoy cheaper hospital fees as local," he said.
Tan said that although the hospital staff are required to prudently account for stocks of medicines as well as its facilities and expenses, the patient registration system, however, allows for abuse.
He said once the patients were accepted as locals, they are granted all the privileges that come with the status such as heavily subsidised treatment and stay at the hospital.
The hospital maternity ward’s fee for foreign women can go as high as RM1,000 while locals pay only RM30.
Said Tan: "There are cases of foreign women using someone else’s husband’s MyKad to register.
"Once they are registered as locals in the hospital, their babies when born can register as Sabahans.
"We have been reporting all such cases to the police for further action... I can’t recall the exact number of cases over the years, but it is a lot."
Tan made the comments when asked to reveal how many foreigners were being admitted for treatment and at what cost.
Burgeoning foreign population
Tan said around 35% of the pregnant women registered with the maternity ward yearly are expectant mothers from neighbouring countries.
Most seem to fall into the illegal immigrant bracket as registered foreign workers are not charged a high fee for treatment.
Under the Plantation Workers Act, foreign workers who produce a GL (guaranteed letter) from their employers at the hospital registration counter need only pay RM5 to enjoy the hospital’s medical services, Tan said.
Sabah has the highest number of foreigners seeking medical services due to its burgeoning foreign population.
According to government statistics, for every hundred patients registered at the various hospitals around the state, about a third are foreigners. Most are unable to pay their bills.
However, it was not all gloom for the district hospital which received a shot-in-the-arm from a charitable organisation.
The hospital was gifted with two haemodialysis machines and got a facelift for its forensic lab by the Che Yee Khor Moral Uplifting Society.
The hospital currently has 12 such machines and there are 48 diabetic patients who have to use them, Tan said.
Also present at the handing-over ceremony were Silam Member of Parliament, Salleh Kalbi.
Monday, January 11, 2010
The politic of Allah.
God means love in many places, but in Malaysia it can also mean politics. That's the takeaway from the United Malays National Organization-led government's attempt to quash the use of the word "Allah" by non-Muslim groups.
At issue is the Catholic Herald's two-year court battle to use the A-word in its Malay-language edition—which it claims it needs to do because there's no other suitable word for "God" in Malay. Last week, the High Court overturned an arbitrary government ban. Yesterday, however, the church agreed to a stay of the decision—at the government's request—until the ruling can be appealed. So the Herald is once again muzzled.
Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail characterized the decision as "a matter of national interest," which implies that somehow Muslims across Malaysia would revolt if the Herald were allowed to reference God in another language. Never mind that Malaysians of many faiths have peacefully co-existed for decades.
The real reason UMNO is politicizing the issue and pandering to its conservative base may be to deflect attention from its own political vulnerabilities. The opposition coalition, led by Anwar Ibrahim, has gained popularity by touting a vision of a secular country in which all religions have equal rights. Even the opposition's Islamic partner, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party—which hasn't always supported liberal ideas—issued a statement Monday saying that the Herald's use of "Allah" is its constitutional right.
Prime Minister Najib Razak called the A-word controversy a "sensitive issue" Sunday. But by allowing his party to continue curtailing freedom of speech, he is only stirring tensions. What a disappointment for a man who ran for office promising to create "One Malaysia." (Taken from the WSJ)
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Right to use 'Allah"
By JAMES HOOKWAY
Malaysia's High Court Thursday ruled that local Roman Catholics can resume referring to God as Allah in Malay-language publications, in a decision that appeared to partially halt the steady Islamization of the majority-Muslim nation in recent years.
The court overturned a three-year-old government ban that prevented the Catholic Church from using the term Allah as a translation for God in its local-language publications. The Arabic word has been used by various faiths in this predominantly Muslim nation for centuries, and the Church argues that it is the only suitable translation for God in the Malay language.
The ban came alongside a spate of other religious disputes that have convinced many Malaysians that their country is adopting an increasingly politicized interpretation of Islam that could browbeat its substantial non-Muslim ethnic-Chinese and Indian minorities and eventually turn off the international investors who helped develop the country's vibrant economy.
In recent months, a Muslim Shariah Court sentenced a woman who ordered a beer in a hotel bar to be caned, while a group of Muslim men desecrated the proposed location of a Hindu temple by tossing a severed cow's head onto the site as police stood aside. Political analysts say the country has become increasingly Islamist in its outlook over the past two decades, and Shariah law is now widely applied to the country's Muslims, who make up around 60% of Malaysia's population of 28 million people. Non-Muslims are governed by civil laws.
Thursday's ruling by Judge Lau Bee Lan, however, suggests that some parts of the Malaysian establishment are beginning to push back against this steady Islamization of what had been one of the world's most moderate outposts of the Muslim faith. Ms. Lau said Christians have a "constitutional right to use Allah," but the government can appeal to a higher court where the ban can be reinstated.
Prosecutors said they are still deciding whether to appeal, but political analysts, including James Chin, a political science professor at the Malaysian campus of Australia's Monash University, expect the battle to continue in the appeals court.
Still, Rev. Lawrence Andrew, the editor of the Malaysian Roman Catholic Church's Herald newspaper described the decision as a "landmark case for our nation," and said it upholds constitutional guarantees for freedom of speech and religion.
And there are signs that Malaysia's political leaders also are keen to preserve the country's religious freedoms. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in Singapore in November, Prime Minister Najib Razak said the government would resist efforts by Islamist hardliners to turn Malaysia becoming a more faith-based nation. "We are going to maintain what we are today- a moderate, Muslim state. There may be some incidents along the way that take place, but that should not be seen" as evidence of a radical shift, he said.
The Herald newspaper filed the lawsuit against the ban on the word Allah in 2007. The government banned non-Muslims from using the word in their literature, fearing it would confuse or mislead Muslims, and said that the term should be used exclusively by Muslims.
The ban hindered the Malay-language edition of the Herald, which is mostly read by indigenous tribes who converted to Catholicism and other forms of Christianity decades ago. It added to the grievances of the Malaysia's religious minorities, who frequently say they are discriminated against by the Muslim-dominated government.
Earlier in 2009, the Malaysian government confiscated a shipment of 10,000 Bibles from Indonesia which shares a very similar language to Malaysia, because they used the word Allah.
Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com
Malaysia's High Court Thursday ruled that local Roman Catholics can resume referring to God as Allah in Malay-language publications, in a decision that appeared to partially halt the steady Islamization of the majority-Muslim nation in recent years.
The court overturned a three-year-old government ban that prevented the Catholic Church from using the term Allah as a translation for God in its local-language publications. The Arabic word has been used by various faiths in this predominantly Muslim nation for centuries, and the Church argues that it is the only suitable translation for God in the Malay language.
The ban came alongside a spate of other religious disputes that have convinced many Malaysians that their country is adopting an increasingly politicized interpretation of Islam that could browbeat its substantial non-Muslim ethnic-Chinese and Indian minorities and eventually turn off the international investors who helped develop the country's vibrant economy.
In recent months, a Muslim Shariah Court sentenced a woman who ordered a beer in a hotel bar to be caned, while a group of Muslim men desecrated the proposed location of a Hindu temple by tossing a severed cow's head onto the site as police stood aside. Political analysts say the country has become increasingly Islamist in its outlook over the past two decades, and Shariah law is now widely applied to the country's Muslims, who make up around 60% of Malaysia's population of 28 million people. Non-Muslims are governed by civil laws.
Thursday's ruling by Judge Lau Bee Lan, however, suggests that some parts of the Malaysian establishment are beginning to push back against this steady Islamization of what had been one of the world's most moderate outposts of the Muslim faith. Ms. Lau said Christians have a "constitutional right to use Allah," but the government can appeal to a higher court where the ban can be reinstated.
Prosecutors said they are still deciding whether to appeal, but political analysts, including James Chin, a political science professor at the Malaysian campus of Australia's Monash University, expect the battle to continue in the appeals court.
Still, Rev. Lawrence Andrew, the editor of the Malaysian Roman Catholic Church's Herald newspaper described the decision as a "landmark case for our nation," and said it upholds constitutional guarantees for freedom of speech and religion.
And there are signs that Malaysia's political leaders also are keen to preserve the country's religious freedoms. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in Singapore in November, Prime Minister Najib Razak said the government would resist efforts by Islamist hardliners to turn Malaysia becoming a more faith-based nation. "We are going to maintain what we are today- a moderate, Muslim state. There may be some incidents along the way that take place, but that should not be seen" as evidence of a radical shift, he said.
The Herald newspaper filed the lawsuit against the ban on the word Allah in 2007. The government banned non-Muslims from using the word in their literature, fearing it would confuse or mislead Muslims, and said that the term should be used exclusively by Muslims.
The ban hindered the Malay-language edition of the Herald, which is mostly read by indigenous tribes who converted to Catholicism and other forms of Christianity decades ago. It added to the grievances of the Malaysia's religious minorities, who frequently say they are discriminated against by the Muslim-dominated government.
Earlier in 2009, the Malaysian government confiscated a shipment of 10,000 Bibles from Indonesia which shares a very similar language to Malaysia, because they used the word Allah.
Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com
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