One of the more exciting aspects of the job of the enforcement officers of JAIS is to catch Muslim couples committing pre-marital sex or adultery. These episodes usually involve night time raids and kicking down doors to catch wrongdoers in the act. Some years ago in one of the states up north, a group of Islamic enforcement officers raided a house where a Muslim man was carrying on a liaison with a Muslim woman whom he was not married to. As in previous raids, the enforcers burst into the room surprising the couple. Unfortunately, the man happened to be a policer officer. He pulled out his service revolver and promptly shot the first enforcer he saw. The poor enforcer died and the police officer was charged with two crimes, khalwat and murder (or manslaughter). Since then, JAIS raids have been carried out in the presence of police officers although the raiding and arresting would be carried out by JAIS. The Police are there to watch and make sure that these guys don’t get shot again.

Of course, there was no such danger to the JAIS enforcers when they raided the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) on January 2, 2014.

By 2.45 pm, everyone from JAIS had left the Damansara Utama Police Station leaving Sinclair Wong and me with a handful of police constables who were probably perplexed as to what was going on. They definitely had never seen JAIS drag in non-Muslims. The number of reporters who came to interview us grew and very soon a little press conference was developing. Sinclar and I were seated on a sofa just in front of the station door. BSM’s General Secretary, Rev Simon Wong, had joined us to serve as our bailor. A police constable had earlier told us that we had to wait for the inspector in charge of bail to come back before we could be released on bail.

Our press conference was going on peacefully until some camera men came in with large video cameras on rather large tripods. About 2 of them started filming. It was at this stage that the police constables must have felt an invasion of their territory.

One of them shouted at the cameramen, “Oi, tak boleh ambil gambar. Keluar! Keluar!” (Hey, cannot take pictures. Get out! Get out!)

As the policemen pushed one camera man out, another one slipped in. In a display of resourcefulness, the policemen must have thought that if they can’t get rid of the press, they could try to isolate us from them.

One of them came and spoke to us in the most deferential of tones, “Encik, sini sangat panas, lah. Saya bawa encik ke pejabat kami. Boleh duduk di sana. Ada air-con juga.” (Sir, it’s very hot here. Let me take you to our office. You can sit there. There’s air-conditioning there).

Being arrested persons, we will follow the dictates of those who have custody of our bodies. So, we followed a policeman who lead us out through the back of the station house. We walked across an open space to another building and was ushered into a room at the ground floor. As we entered, the stench of cigarette smoke and body odour hit our nostrils. The policeman pointed to a sofa and invited us to sit.

I stood motionless in the room for a moment. Then I said to the policeman in Malay, “I am not going to sit in this room. It stinks. I have a lung problem and I cannot tolerate cigarette smoke.” Immediately, the policeman took us out and led us to an open space between 2 buildings where a tarpaulin shade was erected. There was a collapsible table and some chairs piled up on top of each other. It was obvious that this was left over from a New Year’s party the day before. The policeman apologised that there was no fan here but I told him its all right and that I’d rather sit there than inside.

The station house was about 50 metres from were we were. The reporters outside the station house saw us take our seats under the shade and started walking toward us. Three policemen formed a line and stopped them from coming near us and chased them back to the station house.

Very soon, some well dressed individuals were allowed past the police line and came to join us. They were Members of Parliament and Selangor State Assemblymen from the Democratic Action Party (DAP).

By about 4.15 pm, we were told that the bail officer had returned and that our bail papers could now be signed. We went back to the station house and were shown the way into a very small room were a young malay police inspector was seated. Sinclair and I signed our respective bail bonds and Simon signed as our bailor. Then the inspector tore out one copy from the book and gave a copy to Sinclair and me.

I looked at my copy and told the inspector that the bail bond did not say where I should go next. This is where an explanation about bail bonds is in order. When someone is arrested, the police can detain him for 24 hours. After that, the police must take that person to court and obtain a magistrate’s order to hold him for a further period of up to 14 days. During the period of detention, the police will carry out investigations to determine whether an offence has been committed. At the end of the remand period, the police must release the arrested person. However, as happens very often, the police can release the person earlier on bail. Someone has to act as bailor to guarantee that the released person will turn up in court to answer charges. Thus, the bail bond is a document issued by the police that says that they person is released and that he is to appear on a certain date at a specified court to answer charges.

The bail bond issued to Sinclair and I stated that we are to appear on January 10, 2014 but the column that is supposed to say which court we are to appear is left blank.   I showed the inspector the bail bond that he had just issued to me and asked him, “Pada 10 Januari, saya mesti pergi ke mana?” (On 10 January, where am I supposed to go to?”)

He looked at the document for a while and said “Errr …..”

Then I said, “Borang ini kata mahkamah. Saya mesti pergi ke mahkamah apa?” (This form mentions a court. Which court am I supposed to go to?)

Scratching his head, again the inspector said, “Errr ….”

“Mahkamah Shah Alam, kah?” (Shah Alam Court?), I volunteered.

“Ah, ya .. ya! Mahkamah Shah Alam” (Ah, yes, yes, Shah Alam Court), he answered.

“Betul, kah?” (Is that right?), I said.

Then the poor inspector stared at the blank space in the document. Finally, he answered, “You pergi ke pejabat JAIS dan jumpa mereka dulu” (You go to JAIS office and see them first).

“Selepas itu, saya pergi ke mana? Mahkamah Shah Alam?” (After that, where should I go? Shah Alam court?) I queried him again.

“Ya, ya, Mahkamah Shah Alam” (Yes, yes, Shah Alam court).

“Tapi ini tidak kata Makhamah Shah Alam” (But this does not say Shah Alam court) I pressed him further.

“Saya tak tahu. You pergi jumpa JAIS dan minta mereka, lah” (I don’t know. You go to see JAIS and ask them), answered the inspector.

Having had my fun with him, I decided that its time to let him go. At 4.30 pm, we walked out of the Damansara Utama Police Station to the crowd of waiting reporters.

Selangor is Malaysia’s most progressive state. It is the place people from all over the country migrate to for education and jobs. We suffer from over-population, traffic jams and water shortage. Selangor also has a law which says that it is an offence for non-Muslims to use a number of words which belong to Islam. At the top of the list of over thirty words is the word Allah.

The Malay bible used by Malay-speaking Christians uses the word Allah for the generic noun “god.” Thus, the first verse of the Bible “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”  (Genesis 1:1) in the Malay version has the word Allah. It so happens that the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM), the publisher and distributor of the Malay bible, has its offices in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. Thus, on January 2, Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (JAIS) raided BSM’s office.

At 2.10 pm, after spending about 30 minutes in BSM offices, the JAIS party seized over 300 copies of the Malay bible, the Iban bible and the Indonesian bible. The leader of the raiding party turned to Sinclair and me and said “You, Lee, and you, Wong, I arrest you. You have to come with me to the police station.”

We were then taken in the JAIS official car to the Damansara Utama Police Station. We arrived at the police station in 5 minutes as the station was across the highway from BSM’s office. Upon entering the lobby of the police station, the JAIS fellows told Sinclair and me to sit down at some chairs for visitors. The leader of the JAIS party and another man went to the counter of the police station and proceeded to fill out, I think, a police report of the incident.

Before my seat could get warm, a young Indian man walked through the door. He looked at me and asked if we were from BSM. I said we were and he introduced himself as a reporter from The Malaysian Insider, an internet news portal. He said that news of the raid and our arrest is already up in the Malaysian Insider website. We gave our first interview of the incident. A few minutes later, another reporter from another paper walked in and joined the conversation.

After about 15 minutes, the JAIS party began to leave the police station. The leader of the group stopped by where we were sitting and asked whether we could come to JAIS office to see them next Monday, January 6. I said no as I got a case in court on that day. How about Tuesday, he asked. I said no as my trial continues on that day. I then said I could come on Wednesday. He replied that he would be on leave on Wednesday. Then I said how about Friday, January 10. He said that day is fine and asked us to come at 10.00 am. I said all right. He then went back to the counter to speak to the police officers. Then he walked past us and said OK, see you. You wouldn’t have guessed this was the same man who tried to kick down our door 1 hour earlier. So, by 2.30 pm, all the JAIS people had left the police station.

Before I could wonder whether I could go or not, a police constable came to us and said that the police inspector who signs the bail papers is out and he is on the way back. He said we will have to wait for the inspector to get back to sign the papers before we could be released on bail.

Let’s pause for a moment here to set the record straight. Sinclair and I were arrested by JAIS at 2.10 pm and then taken to the Police Station. While at the Police Station, we were handed over to the Police to be further detained. This is an interesting situation for lawyers to talk about. JAIS was a state body and the Police are a Federal body. So, we were arrested and detained by a State body and the custody was transferred to a Federal body which continued our detention.

(To be continued)

In the roll call of Christians arrested in Malaysia for their faith, women were not exempted. Neither were the lawyers representing them.

Azie

Tongiah bte Jumali, known as Azie to her friends, converted to Christianity, was baptised and joined in a church somewhere in Johor. She fell in love with Wong Yen Fooi, a church member, and both of them decided to get married.

Aware of the obstacles they would face, Azie and Wong decided to go to Singapore to be married. They obtained a certificate of marriage from Singapore. Upon their return to Malaysia, they applied to the Registry of Civil Marriages for re-registration of their foreign marriage. It took a year but eventually a Malaysian certificate of marriage was also issued to Azie and Wong.

They then moved to Johor Bahru and set up house in a suburb outside of Johor Bahru. One night in 1997, enforcement officers from Jabatan Agama Islam Johor (JAIJ) forced their way into their home. Azie was arrested by JAIJ and taken to a police station. At the end of one week, Azie was released on bail and was charged in the Syariah Court for khalwat.

Khalwat is the Islamic offence of “close proximity” to cover extra-marital sex by unmarried Muslim couples. Why was Azie charged for something like that? Very simple. JAIJ refused to recognise Azie’s conversion out of Islam. They also refused to recognise her marriage to Wong. As far as they were concerned, Azie and Wong were not married to each other. Therefore, Azie’s cohabitation with Wong was illicit and a breach of Islamic regulations.

I filed a civil suit for Azie and Wong in the High Court in Muar, Johor claiming for damages for wrongful arrest and imprisonment for Azie and damages for loss of consortium for Wong. Their suit was founded on the state and federal government’s violation of Azie’s constitutional right to embrace any religion of her choice under Article 11 of the Constitution.

The suit was thrown out in 2003 by Justice Jeffrey Tan on the technical objection raised by JAIJ that the issue of whether a Muslim had converted out of Islam or not fell under the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court and thus the High Court had no powers to hear the case. Her appeal to the Court of Appeal was similarly dismissed in 2008. The khalwat charge against Azie in the Syariah Court was never proceeded with up to this day.

Azie has 2 children from her marriage to Wong. It was a nightmare each time to register her newly born children as non-Muslims. I have not seen them for over 10 years and I pray that God is taking good care of them.

The Nor’ Aishah case

Nor’ Aishah binti Bokhari, came from the small town of Batu Pahat in Johor. She worked as an executive in Citibank, Kuala Lumpur and she fell in love with her colleague, Arnold Lee, a Roman Catholic of mixed Chinese and Portuguese parentage. They decided to marry. In most cases, the non-Muslim would convert to Islam in order to marry the Muslim partner. However, Nor’ Aishah decided to follow the faith of her intended husband.

Nor’ Aishah’s parents were extremely upset about her plans to convert to Christianity and to marry Arnold. A family meeting was arranged at the office of her lawyer, Mr Leonard Teoh. At the appointed time, Nor’ Aishah together with Arnold Lee and their lawyer, Leonard Teoh, waited outside the front entrance of the AMODA Building at Jalan Imbi, Kuala Lumpur. Nor’ Aishah saw her parents approaching. As she walked out to meet them, a car swerved in and stopped beside her. Some men jumped out and bundled Nor’ Aishah into the car. Some police constables then appeared out of nowhere and stopped Arnold and Leonard from interfering with the abduction.

Nor’ Aishah was taken to her uncle’s house in Bandar Sunway. Her uncle was the police chief at the Dang Wangi Police Station. Soon after that, she was taken in a car to her parents’ home in Batu Pahat and locked up against her will.

A few days later, Leonard Teoh asked me to take legal action to free Nor’ Aishah. However, I asked Leonard how can I be appointed by someone whom I have never met or talked to? A few days later, Leonard and Arnold came to see me. Arnold said he managed to call Nor’ Aishah and she had left a message for me. He held up his mobile phone and I heard this recording: “I appoint Mr Lee Min Choon as my lawyer to represent me in an application to court to free me.”

With this, I filed an application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus in Nor’ Aishah’s name. I cited her parents and her uncle as defendants. Very soon, we were in court. As with most court cases in those days, there were postponements to enable the defendants to file their reply.

On the fortieth day of her detention, Nor’ Aishah managed to escape from her parent’s home. Arnold was waiting in a car outside. They fled to Singapore and from there caught a flight out to an unknown destination. Nor’ Aishah’s parents promptly reported that Nor’ Aishah had been kidnapped by Arnold Lee.

A few days later, Leonard was arrested by the police and taken to the Batu Pahat Police Station as the kidnap report was lodged there and investigations were being carried out by officers from that police station. The next day, Leonard was produced before the Magistrate in Batu Pahat who ordered Leonard to be detained for four days to facilitate police investigations.

I then wrote to the High Court in Johor Bahru complaining that Leonard had been wrongly detained. Leonard was Nor’ Aishah’s lawyer. How can a lawyer be suspected of kidnapping his own client? I asked the High Court to exercise its powers of revision to overturn the Magistrate’s order and to free Leonard.

A few days later, I got a call from the court at 11.30 am informing me that the Judge will hear my application for revision at 2.30 pm. I told the registrar that there is no way I can get from Kuala Lumpur to Johor Bahru by 2.30 pm. The registrar answered that the Judge was free to hear my application only on that day and only between 2.30-4.00 pm. In spite of the impossible task, I told the registrar that I will be there. I called my friend, Tan Poh Lai, a lawyer in Johor Bahru and asked her to attend court for me at 2.30 pm to delay the start of the case and if it was not possible, to do whatever she can to argue the case. Poh Lai, a former deputy public prosecutor, is the youngest daughter of the late opposition leader, Dr Tan Chee Khoon.

I walked into court at 3.00 pm and saw Poh Lai in the midst of arguments before Justice Abdul Malik Ishak. It was a magnificent struggle by Poh Lai given the circumstances and I saw no need to intervene. At 3.30 pm, the Judge decided that there was no justification for him to revise the Magistrate’s order.

The next day, we were at Batu Pahat Magistrate’s Court as Leonard’s 4-day detention expires that day. If the police wanted to detain him further, they would have to produce him before the Magistrate to obtain a further order for detention. We waited the whole day for Leonard to appear. The Police finally brought him to court at 4.00 pm. The Police requested for another ten days of detention. Poh Lai again led the arguments. At the end of the day, the Magistrate compromised. He ordered a detention of 7 days.

Three days later, I got a call from Leonard that he had been released by the Police. Leonard was never charged for kidnapping Nor’ Aishah.

This was the only case I have ever done where I never met or spoke with my client. Rumour has it that the couple eventually married and settled down in a Western country. They will never return to Malaysia. God bless you, Nor’ Aishah and Arnold, wherever you are.

Why another blog?

Christians love their Bible. In Malaysia, one bible struggles against efforts to chain it. It is the Malay language version of the Christian Bible known as the Al-Kitab. It has been banned, unbanned and then partly banned, confiscated, desecrated, ten pointed and confiscated again. No other Malaysian book have gone through so much and its story is continuing. There is not only a dearth of information about the struggle of the Al-Kitab but there is misinformation as well.

The story of this Bible is a story of faith and God’s grace upon the followers of Jesus Christ in Malaysia. It is a story that must be told so that present and future generations of Malaysian Christians will cherish Malaysia’s Bible. The people most qualified to tell this story are the custodians of this Bible, The Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM). I am the current President of BSM and have been involved in every crisis involving the Al-Kitab for the past 15 years. For the sake of the Malay Bible, I was arrested on January 2, 2014.  This story will be told in future postings.

In my postings, I seek to give information. I will share eye-witness testimony and give you a ring side seat to the action. I will try to avoid making judgments as much as possible although it may happen every now and then. I believe that as people are given the facts, they will draw the conclusions for themselves.

To those of other faiths, please note that I will share my Christian faith and religious convictions from time to time in this blog. If it offends you, you know what to do. However, I hope you will persevere and enjoy my posts with an open  mind.

Lee Min Choon