Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim and Federal Court judge Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff delivered the majority decision dismissing her appeal. Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Justice Richard Malanjum dissented. Lina Joy, 42, who was born to a Malay Muslim couple, became a Christian when she was 26. The sales assistant has taken her case all the way to the Federal Court because unless the government recognizes her conversion, she cannot get married under civil law. As long as the word “Islam” remains on her identity card, Lina cannot marry her Christian boyfriend, a cook, under the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976.
While Lina managed – the second time around – to get the National Registration Department to change her name from Azlina Jailani in 1999, accepting that she had renounced Islam, it refused to remove the word “Islam” from her MyKad. 
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May 30th, 2007 by financetwitter
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Comments
Yes what a sad day for Malaysia. The court verdict against Lina Joy has destroyed her bid to have her religious choice be seen as a matter of personal conscience rather than a state imposed obligation. Whilst the angry young men rejoice and shout “Allah-o-Akbar”, the Muslim religion again trumps the constitution and provides yet another early indication that the cracks are widening in this so called rights based democracy.
This verdict and other sad cases such as that of Subashini Rajasperhaps, may mean that the country’s tourist promotion board needs to rework its “Truly Asia” campaign. Perhaps now they need to market as ‘Malaysia truly Arabia’. Actually the government sometime back removed its English street names so it should be no problem for them to re-brand KL as the centre of “ASIARABIA” and perhaps they could call it ‘Riyadh Lumpur’. Oh yes and of course Putrajaya could become Meccaminor.
Now get the tune in the head and its… Malaysia…. truly Arabia… yessssirrrr sounds great.
To be honest, I wish everyone would just leave her alone. I’m Muslim myself and cannot practise my Islam in a Muslim country not just because of the Muslims who hammer me with minor issues such as the way I dress or who I choose to be with but also discrimination from non Muslims too. It’s all too easy to blame one group for the country’s problems, but without each other, Malaysia wouldn’t even have half of what it does now, facility wise. Plenty of Muslims convert OUT of Islam but there are plenty who convert INTO Islam, but as usual us Asians prefer to focus on issues that needn’t be priorotised like someone’s private life. The country needs a major overhaul. Let it be Muslim, by all means, if non Musims don’t like it, then the world is their oyster, and they can join in terrorist tirades written by right winged Western newspapers as much as they want. But, a message to all you Muslim Brothers & Sisters, please grow up. Equating Malay with Muslim is frankly, just bulls**t. Malays are a hybrid race, and Islam condemns racism if it ever needs to see it, which in most Muslim communities, it doesn’t need to. Why in Malaysia? And for all you Non Muslim Malaysians out there, not all Muslims are terrorists, and we face discrimination too, especially from disgruntled and angry folks like you who also, for some reason equate Islam with beng Malay despite calling yourself smarter and more educated.
u are damn right. it’s impossible in malaysia; a county ruled by a race that contradicts themselves in all ways possible