HINDU Agamam Ani Malaysia today lashed out at the Kota Tinggi Islamic Religious Department for “harassing” a woman challenging her unilateral conversion to Islam when she was a child.

Chairman of the religious group, Arun Dorasamy, said the department’s officials had scolded the 25-year-old woman and invaded her privacy when they barged into her house and took photographs of her and her three children without her permission.

“This woman is a victim of unilateral conversion and is seeking recourse. She does not practise Islam, instead she is practising Hinduism,” Arun said at a press conference today.

“She was raised as a Hindu, married to a Hindu husband with all her children also practising Hinduism.

“The Kota Tinggi Islamic Religious Department officials had gone to her house when she was alone with her children, scolded her for filing a lawsuit against the Johor government, and scolded her for not wearing a headscarf in her own home.

“They also breached her privacy by taking photographs of her, her three young children and her house without her permission.

“This is a contempt of court on the part of religious department. It should challenge the lawsuit in court instead of harassing, frightening and threatening the woman and her family,” Arun said, adding that the religious department’s behaviour was illegal.

“On Monday, we will file a contempt case against the Johor Islamic Religious Department and all its external agencies,” Arun told The Malaysian Insight.

Arun, who is also a plaintiff in this lawsuit, said that the woman had lodged a police report this morning at Ulu Tiram police station.

The woman requested anonymity on the grounds that she is fearful for her safety and that of her children.

In the police report sighted by The Malaysian Insight, she said that five officers from the Kota Tinggi Religious Department came to her house on Sunday in a van and only one, who was in uniform, introduced himself as an officer from the department.

She said that they had asked her to open the front door, entered her house and then scolded her for filing a lawsuit against the Johor government.

On March 3, M. Indira Gandhi, Arun and 12 others including the woman from Johor, filed a lawsuit to nullify unconstitutional unilateral conversion laws in the federal territories and seven states.

The lawsuit, filed at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur, contests state enactments for unilateral conversion in the Federal Territories, Perlis, Kedah, Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Perak and Johor.

Arun had said the key to their case was the 2018 Federal Court ruling in favour of Indira, which stated that her fugitive ex-husband’s unilateral conversion of their three children was unconstitutional.

Arun also wants the court to strike out every unilateral conversion that has taken place since the landmark ruling.

Meanwhile, Malaysia Hindu Sangam, the representative body of Hindus in Malaysia, another victim of unilateral conversion, and eight citizens make up the remaining plaintiffs in the case.

Arun said that if the defendants had acted on the Federal Court ruling, then they would not be in such a situation, adding that the Loh Siew Hong case would not have happened.

“What we are asking is written in the Federal Constitution.

“How many poor mothers would have to go through this?” he said. – March 30, 2023.