Non-governmental organisations champion rights

One other thing is clear when speaking to some of these groups. Both Islam and the notion of Malay rights are often conflated to be one and the same.

By Shanon Shah, The Nut Graph

OVER the past year, several Malay-Muslim groups have been in the headlines.

From lawsuits filed against the DAP's Teresa Kok for allegedly insulting Islam, to campaigns responding to the crisis in Gaza, the defence of Islam and Malay rights has occuppied the national attention, sometimes in frightening ways.

Just what are these groups about? What motivates them? And do these non-governmental organisations (NGOs), some of which have mushroomed very quickly overnight, really express the will of the majority of Malay Muslims in Malaysia?

Defending Islam

The emergence of Muslim groups is not a post-March 2008 phenomenon. In 2006, a coalition of NGOs called Pembela was spearheaded by the Malaysian Muslim Youth Movement (Abim). Pembela was formed to counter "the tendency to use court cases to emasculate the status of Islam, particularly through applications for apostasy."

According to Abim vice-president Azril Mohd Amin, "At that time the Lina Joy case was being highlighted and could have provided an opportunity to alter the privileged status of Islam as enshrined in the Federal Constitution.

Azril "Pembela received all kinds of support, including speaking platforms at mosques and association premises, and was supported by more than 50 Muslim NGOs nationwide," he says in an e-mail interview.  "This demonstrates how close this issue is to the hearts of Muslims in this country."

In 2006, aside from Pembela's protests, more than 200 Muslim protesters disrupted a forum in Penang on constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion, organised by Article 11 and Aliran.

A year before, the Allied Coordinating Committee of Islamic NGOs (Accin) alleged that the Inter-Faith Commission (IFC) proposal by civil society, and initially supported by the government, was anti-Islam and threatened communal harmony.

Occasionally, protests in the name of defending Islam turned ugly. In August 2006, one of Lina Joy's lawyers, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, became the target of e-mail death threats from likely but unknown Muslim sources.

Later in 2006, 300 Muslim protesters ambushed a church on Jalan Silibin, Ipoh, because they mistakenly believed Muslim Malaysians were being converted to Christianity inside. The rumour was spread by an SMS which implicated Perak Mufti Datuk Seri Harussani Zakaria.

And in August 2008, a 300-strong demonstration consisting of Muslim NGOs, and leaders from PAS, Umno and Parti Keadilan Rakyat stormed the Bar Council during its forum on conversions to Islam.

Some of these incidents have naturally caused fear among many Malaysians, and some Muslim NGOs have condemned the use or threat of violence.

"The way the protest against the Article 11 forum in Penang was done was not good," says Dr Mazeni Alwi, chairperson and co-founder of the Muslim Professionals Forum (MPF). "There were certainly grounds for protests, but they should have been more civic," he says in a phone interview.

"Although Islamic groups in Malaysia do not usually resort to overt violence in their protests, the language some of them use could be better," says Mazeni.

READ MORE HERE