I was in Kuala Terengganu last Sunday to attend court in respect of a claim by the 1st wife of Ariffin Mohamad aka Ayah Pin, against the state authorities in respect of the demolition of the decorative structures on her land in July, 2005.
Stopped by at the Ayah Pin kampung enroute back to KL.
This is all that remains after the demolition exercise carried out by the state on 31st July, 2005
This village used to be the home of the now famous four apostates.
I have previously written about their plight HERE and HERE.
I say ‘used to be’ their home because two of them have since died and one other, Md Yaacob Ismail, now lives elsewhere.
Only Kamariah Ali
Kamariah, fondly referred to by all as Mama
still lives at this village.
Her husband, Mohamed bin Ya, or just Baba to most, one of the four, passed away on 3rd October, 2003, whilst Daud Mamat
Daud Mamat aka Pak Op
died last year.
The four, from November, 2000 in the Kota Bharu Syariah Court, in the civil High Court from December, 2000 until their Court of Appeal hearing in 2002, maintained that they had renounced Islam as their professed faith. All four relied on their respective statutory declarations dated August 1998 that they had renounced Islam of their own free will.
By the time their appeals reached the Federal Court, Baba had passed away.
The remaining three, in the Federal Court, maintained their position that they had renounced Islam.
The stance of the AG’s Chambers and the state legal advisor throughout these proceedings was that the four continued to be Muslim until there was an order of the Syariah Court confirming that they were apostates.
The Court of Appeal confirmed the position of the AG to be the correct position in law.
Yet, when Baba died, and his next-of-kin approached the religious authorities for a burial plot to bury him, they were told that Baba was an apostate and as such he could not be given a burial plot in a Muslim cemetary.
Note that there was no Syariah court order declaring Baba an apostate.
What the authorities had done was to deny Baba to live his life as a non-Muslim based on his own say so, yet these same authorities relied on that same say so by Baba to hold him to be an apostate in death!
And so, the next-of -kin buried Baba’s remains in the kampung.
The only thing that the demolitioners did not dare tear down
Daud Mamat’s remains, however, were buried in a Muslim cemetary.
Why the different treatment?
Both were my clients and I know that both were unwavering in their stance, to their very end, that they were not Muslim.
Both Baba and Mama, as husband and wife, have, for as long as I have known both, held a common viewpoint on God and their relationship with him. That viewpoint is plainly at odds with the conventional understanding of Islam and prevalent in our country.
If the authorities have now accepted Baba as an apostate, why do they continue to treat Mama as Muslim?
So that they may continue to torment her while she is alive?
In my earlier post of 27th April, 2008 mentioned above, this is what I had said of Mama’s ongoing plight :
“In June, 2005, she was arrested whilst at the Ayah Pin village. Whilst at the Besut Syariah lower court, she had informed the syariah authorities that she had renounced Islam.
This utterance of hers became the basis of a charge under section 7 of the Terengganu Syariah offences act in that she had claimed to be not Muslim with a view to avoiding the jurisdiction of the Syariah Courts.
It is this charge that she had been convicted with in February this year.
Convicted, notwithstanding her having tendered evidence of a statutory declaration dated August, 1998 that she voluntarily renounced Islam. Convicted, notwithstanding her having tendered evidence of her affidavits filed in the civil High Court in Kota Baru in 2000 and the Federal Court in 2002 reaffirming that she had renounced Islam.
Her sentence of imprisonment following her conviction in February has been stayed pending her appeal to the Syariah Court of Appeal”.
Mama’s appeal against this conviction is still pending in the Syariah Court of Appeal.
Her appeal against the dismissal of her application to refer certain questions to the Federal Court is due to be heard on 27th April, 2010.
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