State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2010 - Malaysia

Despite campaign pledges by Prime Minister Najib Razak to address long-standing grievances among Malaysia's minorities, who staged demonstrations that were widely credited as a key to his predecessor's defeat, the government has implemented few reforms. Perhaps such failed promises added to the ethnic and religious tensions that plagued the country in 2009. Many minority activists resent policies that favour Malays, who account for half the population and are granted preferred status when it comes to education, jobs and status.

Religion is also a point of contention for minorities, and the courts are often called on to settle issues that challenge Islam's dominance. Islam is the state religion (60 per cent of Malaysians are Muslim), but Article 7 of the Constitution states that 'other religions may be practised in peace and harmony'. A 31 December 2009 court ruling was a telling example of how such tensions play out in the social arena. The court overturned the government's March ban on the use of the word 'Allah' in Christian publications in the Malay language; the government appealed the decision. Protesters firebombed several churches soon afterwards. In October, the government seized and destroyed 20,000 Bibles in which the word 'God' had been replaced by 'Allah', a common practice in Christian texts written in Malay. The government said that switching the words could cause confusion and lead to Muslims to convert to Christianity, according to a report by CNN.

Several other court cases brought minority religious rights into focus in 2009, as they were launched against actions taken by the government that infringed upon religious freedom. Shanmuga Kanesalingam, legal adviser to the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism, said in an interview, 'A significant minority of non-Muslims are still unlawfully being treated as Muslims, and are subjected to Islamic law. They cannot marry non-Muslims, and when they die their bodies will be taken away by the Islamic authorities and their non-Muslim families disinherited.' He pointed to two cases in particular in which he was involved. The 'body-snatching' case of Mohan Singh saw the Islamic authorities take possession of the deceased man's body in order to give it a Muslim burial. Singh was a Punjabi Sikh, but the authorities claimed he had converted to Islam in 1992. The law allows conversion to Islam but prohibits converting from Islam to any other religion. Singh's Sikh family rejected the claim, but they were rebuffed by the authorities. Kanesalingam noted of the family, 'They will also be disinherited.' He mentioned also the case of a Hindu woman whose husband had converted to Islam and was trying to force her to go to the Islamic Syariah court (the Malaysian Sharia courts) in order to divorce her and take possession of their children whom he wished to convert to Islam as well. Kanesalingam said, 'Government authorities and the civil courts show undue deference to such Syariah court orders. Much anticipated law reforms have been deferred pending the Syariah authorities' feedback.'

Indigenous communities, who comprise 11 per cent of the population, continued to face threats to their traditional way of life as mining, logging and hydroelectric dam construction threatened their environment. At the end of 2009, for example, the Bakun hydroelectric dam in Borneo was in the final stages of completion, with officials saying they would begin filling it with water in early 2010. Thousands of indigenous people have already been driven from their ancestral lands to make way for the dam, which will eventually flood an area of jungle the size of Singapore. Those affected include the Penan tribe, who number about 10,000, of whom about 400 are thought to be among the last nomadic hunter-gatherers left in the world. Twelve more dams are planned in Malaysian Borneo, according to a report by The Independent, a UK newspaper.

The year 2009 also saw a significant legal victory for indigenous peoples, as Malaysia's highest court, the Federal Court, affirmed a ruling that grants them land rights. Advocates said the ruling could help indigenous peoples resist destruction wrought by oil and logging companies.