I am sure that by now all of you would have heard about the custody battle of S. Deepa after her ex husband, N. Viran who has, since converted to Islam and now known as Izwan Viran Abdullah.
In case you have not heard of this, here’s the summary:
Last year, S. Deepa’s children were converted to Islam by her then-husband without her knowledge. On top of that, the Syariah Court awarded custody to the husband. Deepa also faced domestic violence by the husband, and she has obtained an interim protection order to protect her from further abuse. Deepa and the husband are presently divorced. Three days ago, Deepa was awarded custody of her two children, now aged 6 and 9, by the High Court. But just one day later, the ex-husband violently abducted the son from Deepa’s home.
The flagrant thing here is, the IGP, Khalid Abu Bakar called for Deepa to settle her differences with her husband privately, instead of swiftly arresting Izwan for breaching the protection interim. He told Deepa to talk with her husband and gives a tacit message of a more sinister machination – that the law is oblique to one party.
PDRM is observing inaction and by our IGP’s logic, Deepa should talk it out with her husband. Ini cerita tepuk tangan sebelah ni. Was Izwan ready to talk by the means of oral in the first place? No, he ‘spoke’ with blows and violent behaviour and flouting the law openly while the police just keep their arms folded and watch the crime take place right before their eyes.
The child was taken by force and if that is not daylight abduction, I don’t know what is it. It is unfair to defend such thuggish act and tell the mother of the child to talk to her abuser and the irresponsible father. He is a criminal and should be treated like one. Deepa should be protected, not be brushed off negligibly and persecuted – she’s the victim, not the accused.
How can Sharia court give judgement on a case which involves a Muslim (so called) and a non Muslim?
Deepa’s children can never be Muslims just because their father converted to Islam without the permission of his wife or family first.
In the case of Izwan standing both in Sharia and civil court, civil court assumes precedence because Deepa is a non-Muslim – civil court is secular.
Echoing the words of Dato Seri Nazri Aziz who said in the parliament on 23 April 2009, he announced that the Cabinet had decided that in the event of any dispute, a child must be raised in the faith professed by both parents at the time of marriage.
He said any individual who wanted to convert to another religion must resolve all problems regarding his responsibilities before converting, to avoid innocent parties, especially the children, becoming victims.
He added that the Cabinet also decided that if a marriage was done under the civil court, it could only be dissolved under the civil law. The minister also said conversions will no longer be retrospective, meaning that people could not use a change in religion to escape alimony and custody rulings ordered by a civil court.
Nazri made it very clear that any individual who wanted to convert religion must resolve all problems before converting; Izwan had obviously gone against this. How could the IGP “condone” his kidnapping action after he had unilaterally converted his children?
MIC made some noise – MIC Youth chief C. Sivaraajah has criticised Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s statement that the police would not take any action against a Muslim convert father who snatched away his six-year-old son from his Hindu ex-wife in Negri Sembilan last week. I doubt that our Home Minister even care about this clarion call.
Of course there are hidden agendas concerning how this case is being dealt with – every party is manipulating this to suit their own self serving interests. Menangguk di air keruh. UMNO members wants to exploiy this case for their political mileage. In the KiniTV video, an NGO defends the action of Izwan being tagged as kidnapping is too harsh when it is indeed a full blown criminal offence and in the background there are several UMNO members who perhaps told the NGO member to say so.
This is a gross miscarriage of justice and there seems to be some ‘untouchables’ who are protected by biased authority who can get away with whatever they do and others have to suffer injustice just because they are minority.
