SINGLE mother Loh Siew Hong will file a judicial review to challenge the unilateral conversion of her three children unless the registrars of converts in Perlis, Kedah and Penang show that the conversions are not registered, her lawyer said.

Shamsher Singh Thind told Free Malaysia Today that Loh had sent letters of demand to the registrars of converts (pendaftar mualaf) in the three states, asking them for proof that the conversions are listed on their registers.

The judicial review will be dropped if the state registrars reply that the children are not on their registers of converts, FMT quoted him as saying.

“Otherwise, we will file a review, with or without the letter. We will ask for a court order to compel them to cancel the certificate of conversion, in the event there is one in the first place,” he told the news portal in George Town.

The letters of demand were sent on Wednesday, he said, and the three registrars have been given a week to reply.

Shamsher said the letters of demand were sent to the three states as Loh’s children had been cared for by a woman in Penang before being moved to Perlis.

Loh’s ex-husband Nagahswaran Muniandy had also lived in Kedah. He is currently in prison in Kelantan for a drug-related offence.

Shamsher said he wanted “something in writing” to prove the children’s conversion, adding that whatever Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin had said about unilateral conversions being legal under Perlis law was “hearsay”.

The lawyer said despite calls for Loh’s children to remain Muslims, their unilateral conversions without her consent as their mother are unlawful, citing the Federal Court’s stand that conversion must be approved by both parents.

Furthermore, Loh had been granted full custody of the children last year following her divorce from Naghaswaran.

Loh has been separated from her children – twin 14-year-old girls and a 10-year-old boy – since 2019 while she was in hospital due to injuries she claimed she sustained from physical abuse by Naghaswaran.

It was after that time that he had them converted, and Loh was unable to find them besides being hampered by Covid-19 lockdowns.

She was granted full custody of the children last March, and finally located them early last month at a Perlis welfare home only to discover they had been converted to Islam.

She had also filed police reports after not being able to find them.

Despite the court’s custody order, neither the police nor the welfare authorities are handing the children over to her.

As such, Loh has a habeas corpus hearing at the Kuala Lumpur High Court tomorrow whereby the three children must also appear before the judge.

The habeas corpus will allow Loh to inform the court that the children have been held from her unlawfully, and the court can order the children to be handed over to her. – February 20, 2022.