FORCED conversions, Bible seizures and now a bid to to increase shariah punishments. These were not what the elder leaders of Sabah and Sarawak bargained for when they agreed to form the Malaysian federation with Peninsular Malaya.

And if those leaders had known all of this would happen 54 years down the road, they would have thought twice before inking the Malaysia Agreement in 1963, said prominent Sabah native and former Malaysian Human Rights (Suhakam) commissioner Simon Sipaun.

“Our leaders insisted to Malaya that freedom of religion was guaranteed in the new federation. They had this promise carved in stone in 1963,” said Sipaun, who was 25 years old and living in Kota Kinabalu in the time.

That stone, called the oath stone or “batu sumpah”, has three promises carved into it by then Sabah leaders as an enduring reminder to the natives of what was guaranteed for them in the new federation.

Freedom of religion is the topmost guarantee, followed by rights to land and native customs. The stone is preserved at the Keningau district office in Sabah’s interior.

“Hudud is not part of the deal because if it was, Sabah would not be part of Malaysia,” said Sipaun, one of a group of concerned East Malaysians to sign an open letter opposing RUU355.

RUU355 is the moniker for a parliamentary bill sponsored by Islamist party PAS to seek harsher penalties for Muslims who commit shariah offences, such as consuming alcohol and adultery.

Though its defenders such as ruling party Umno claim it is not “hudud” (Islamic Penal Code), its critics argue that the bill seeks to implement hudud through the backdoor by amending several federal laws.

“I don’t believe their assurances.  They once promised to repeal the Sedition Act but instead, they strengthened it,” said Sipaun referring to the Najib administration’s flip-flop on the colonial era law.

“RUU355 could be the start of the imposition of Muslim doctrine on non-Muslims judging by what has been happening over the years.”

Creeping Islamisation

Sipaun has had a front row view of the changes in Sabah’s socio-religious landscape over the past five decades. He was 25 when talk of Sabah forming the Malaysian federation was at fever pitch.

At the time, North Borneo, as Sabah was then called, did not have laws regulating religion and communities were free to practise their faiths, said Sipaun, who has served as a Sabah state secretary.

“Punishment for sin was up to God. The civil law only punished crimes. There was no religious tension. Churches would use the term ‘Allah’ and Muslims did not have a problem with it.”

Over the years, Sabahans began to feel that a subtle campaign of Islamisation directed from the Peninsula was creeping into their lives, said Sipaun.

“As a Suhakam commissioner, I investigated complaints of dead bodies being fought over by Muslims and non-Muslims.

“We’ve probed cases of how when Sabahans with Arabic or Malay names changed their old identity cards for the new MyKad, they automatically got a ‘bin’ or ‘binti’ added to their names and the Islam label.”

Malaysian Muslims have the patronymics “bin” and ‘binti’ inserted into their names on their official identity documents. A Muslim’s MyKad also shows the label ‘“Islam” below his or her name.

“But they testified that they were not born Muslims or had been Muslims at any time in their lives. It’s just that they had Arabic or Malay names.”

When the complainants went to court to get this rectified, they were referred to the shariah court, said Sipaun. But the court process was arduous, and the officials resistant.

“One of the complainants told us that he even had to go through a Muslim rehabilitation course before he got declared a non-Muslim”.

Sabahans were also shocked in 2009, when controversy broke out over the use of the word “Allah” in local churches, and Bahasa Malaysia Bibles meant for Sabah were confiscated, he said.

It is this backdrop of controversial rulings and policies that have caused Sabahans to be even more suspicious of the aims of RUU355.

“Non-Muslims are afraid that this will impact their daily lives just as the Bible seizures did. Muslim extremists are going around sowing fear into everyone.

“This is not the Malaysia I expected North Borneo to form.” – May 7, 2017.