Isma: Human rights must be based on Islam

Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) has urged the federal government to interpret human rights values based on Islamic values because Muslims form the majority in Malaysia.
In a press release today, Isma deputy president Aminuddin Yahaya listed out the organisation's six demands, which among others urged the federal government not to ratify six international human rights treaties.
These include the Convention on Elimination of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw), International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which includes freedom of religion, and the Convention On The Rights Of Child (CRC).

Isma said these pacts were a sinister bid to make the country a completely free state with no limits on freedom. This would jeopardise racial harmony in Malaysia and also violate its sovereignty, it said.

“As a Muslim country where the majority of the people are Muslims, then all forms of freedom as defined in human rights must be accompanied by the principles of Islam,” said Isma’s deputy president Aminuddin Yahaya in a recent statement.

Isma said instead, Malaysia should look to follow the more conservative standards set by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Cairo Declaration of 1990 and the Declaration of Human Rights by the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) last year.

In the statement, Aminuddin also once again blasted Comango, a coalition of 54 human rights NGOs, which it alleges carries a sinister agenda.

Comango has said that Isma was out to slander the NGO, which intended to present the true picture of Malaysian civil society instead of the whitewashed government version at the  Universal Periodical Review (UPR) process in October.