Ruth Gledhill weblog: Malaysian malaise
May 10, 2007

Excerpt: "Conversion from Islam is still regarded as apostasy in this country, and comes under the jurisdiction of Shariah courts. One Muslim woman [Lina Joy] who has been fighting through the courts to have her conversion from Islam to Christianity confirmed has become a cause celebre. Her case has been heard at every level of the secular courts and is now before the Federal Court but the hearing is indefinitely delayed despite protests from her lawyer.

"From a Christian perspective the cancellation of the seminar was disappointing. The seminar was an opportunity for Christian and Muslim scholars to meet together to discuss their scriptures and the human vocation in the world. For Christians such meetings are an opportunity to express a peaceable relationship to Islam and so witness to a different understanding of intereligious and intercultural relationships than the dominant frame of violent conflict sustained by the rhetoric and methods of the so-called 'war on terror'."

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