I would like to report on violation of human rights by officials from Jabatan Agama Islam Pulau Pinang (JAIPP).

At about 10.15 pm, 01/11/07, at house no 15, Lintang Sg Ara 1, Taman Desa Ara, 11900 Bayan Lepas, Penang (the house is rented by Mr Asmady Sulaiman 660720-07-5021), a Hari Raya gathering-cum-dinner attended by staff, employees and guests of Rufaqa Corporation Penang was interrupted by around 6 - 7 male and 2 female JAIPP enforcement officers, accompanied from behind by several policemen. Rufaqa' is a private limited company owned by Ashaari Muhammad, former leader of the banned Darul Arqam movement, and Rufaqa' employs mostly former Darul Arqam members as its staff in economic projects all over the country. The Penang branch has existed since 2001. Present in the gathering was Khadijah Aam, wife of Ashaari Muhammad. Khadijah was thanking Rufaqa' Penang for inviting her to the function, coupling the words of gratitude with spiritual remembrances (tazkirah) on the subject of 'life after death' at the precise time when the raid started.

The JAIPP spokesman, Pegawai Penguatkuasa Agama (PPA), Mr Aqim, announced that those who were at the gathering had violated sections of Islamic enactments which had purportedly gazetted Rufaqa' as an illegal organisation. JAIPP officials then conducted an intense search of the bodies and belongings of those present (around 50 altogether, excluding children). Confiscated were personal belongings which allegedly proved intentions of the gatherers to adhere to teachings of Rufaqa' (which is nonsensical since Rufaqa' is a commercial company, not a religious organisation) and / or to revive Darul Arqam. Among things confiscated were photos of Ashaari, big and small, even those
kept in the purses of the gatherers.

Notwithstanding theological disputations which have so long driven a wedge between the legalistic state-sanctioned official Islam and the sufistic Islam of Darul Arqam (possibly continued by some employees of Rufaqa' on an individual basis), adherents of the latter deserve to be treated as human beings who possess rights which cannot be trampled upon. I wish to report on the following possible violation of human rights that possibly occurred during the operation:

1. After the body search and confiscation of personal belongings, 51 individuals were ordered to report to the Bayan Lepas police station to sign surety letters to grant them bail on a personal basis. They were not given clear instructions whether they could leave their children (under the liable age for prosecution) behind or not. Apparently, some said that children could be left behind, some others said that children had to be brought along. As a result, some brought small kids along. Understandably, the crowded conditions of the vicinity in which the alleged offenders were hounded into, caused extreme discomfort to them and led to them shedding tears. This sight did not arouse sympathy from the JAIPP officials or the police, until one of the gatherers took the initiative to call a friend to come to the police station and transport the children back to the place of gathering at Sg Ara, where some adults (not the original gatherers) had been stationed to take care of the children. No sympathetic offer came from JAIIP and the police to transport the children, despite it being their mistake in giving unclear instructions. The process of signing letters of guarantee, releasing the gatherers on bail, ended at 3 am.

2. The JAIPP officials had prohibited the gatherers from going to the police station with their own cars, instead, they had to board JAIPP vehicles, driven by JAIPP officials. Some officials guaranteed that the gatherers would be transported back to Sg Ara (where their respective cars had been parked) once the bailing process was completed. This promise was flouted. Thus, at 3 am, some of them with their children away at Sg Ara, were left to their own devices as to how to get from Bayan Lepas police station back to Sg Ara. The police showed apathy to the gatherers' plight once the official process was
over. The gatheres had to call some friends at 3 am to fetch them at Bayan Lepas.

3. Some gatherers reported that when faced with the letters of surety, they were urged (intimidated?) to sign them even before they had read the conditions as stipulated in the letters (ie. words like, "Sign je lah cepat, ramai orang lagi tu." JAIPP officials had treated the alleged offenders as offenders whose rights were of trivial concern to them. Throughout the operation, they showed the impression that they wanted to get everything settled quickly, obviously as they wanted to go home to the comfort of their wives and kids, ignoring altogether that the gatherers had similar wants as well.

4. Throughout the operation (10 pm - 3 am), the gatherers were not given any food. The dining part of the function had not begun at 10 pm. Some of them had fasted in the day (part of the post-Ramadan 6-day optional fasting), meaning that they had only little food after Maghrib (dusk) as the big dinner was coming at the end of the function. At the police station, they were given only small bottles of mineral water to quench their thirst; even these had to be shared among the gatherers. Although the gatherers had hinted about their hunger and thirst throughout the procedure, both the police and JAIPP officials were oblivious to their concern.

As a member of the Muslim community, I am ashamed of how JAIPP religious officials (all supposedly ustaz and ustazah) treated their co-religionists with impunity. Whatever the offences that might have been committed by the gatherers, they should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, and even then, they should be given all rights due to them under both the law and human concerns. On the whole, the JAIPP officials' behaviour throughout the operation smacks of the behaviour of licensed henchmen. The conduct of the police was slightly better, some of them apologised for the discomfort that had to be undergone by the gatherers. None of the JAIPP officials did.

(The following section, chronicling the experience at JAIPP, the syariah court, and in prison, was written on 8 December 2007)

We were made to understand, on the night of our arrest (01/11/07 until the wee hours of 02/11/07), that we were to report to JAIPP anytime between 9 am. and 5 pm., 05/11/07, for the purpose of recording of recording our statements (51 statements overall). Some, including me, chose to come early. At around 9.20 am., those present among us were instructed to gather in the JAIPP meeting room to be briefed by a JAIPP official. He claimed that instructions had been given to all of us to arrive at JAIPP at 9 am. sharp. I checked with my friends who had arrived; almost all had understood JAIPP’s past instructions as meaning that we were given room to report at JAIPP anytime between 9 am. and 5 pm., not necessarily at 9 am. But now JAIPP officials were arrogantly denying their mistake, intentional or not, and ordering us to call all of our remaining friends to come to JAIPP promptly. We were horrified to read a report in Harian Metro that morning that we were going to be hauled to the syariah court that very day. JAIPP was obviously concealing from us vital information which affected our own lives and movements, but divulged that same information to the media. JAIPP officials never informed us that prosecution would immediately follow the interviews at JAIPP. We came to JAIPP on the anticipation that we would be released once our respective interviews were over and summoned to the syariah court on another date. JAIPP officials seemed to enjoy the fact that we were under their mercy.
The interviews varied in length and nature from person to person. My whole life story was related to the JAIPP investigating officer in a two and a half-hour interview. At times, I felt my arguments had defeated his, but this was of no consequence as he would record only statements which suited JAIPP’s intent of filing allegations against me. Arguments which had him on the defensive were left as unrecorded exchanges of opinions, which the officer ostensibly appreciated. Some other interviewees were shown a list their previous SMS messages which were allegedly evidence of past mischievous communication among plotters of a ‘Darul Arqam revival’. Our private lives had obviously been intruded by a collusion between state institutions (JAIPP, police special branch) and private telecommunications companies (Celcom, Maxis, DiGi), who might or might not have been coerced. My interviewer took away my original surety letter issued on the night 01/11/07, promising that he would photocopy one for my retention. He broke his promise. The letter had stated the sections of Penang’s Syariah Criminal Enactments (1996) under which I was to be charged.

By around 1 pm., most of the interviews had ended. After zohor at JAIPP, we were not allowed to leave the building until the arrival of a bus chartered to transport us to the syariah court. By the time we were ordered to board the bus, we realised that some interviewees had been released by JAIPP for reasons unknown to us. From what we knew, they had certain official or unofficial connections to the state. One Mrs. F was the wife of an UMNO strongman who, prior to the gathering on the night of 01/11/07, had warned her that raids on Rufaqa’ functions in Penang were about to be launched. Another Mrs. R, who was freed with her husband Mr. J, was on JAIPP’s payroll as a Kelas Agama dan Fardu Ain (KAFA) teacher in Balik Pulau. From the gatherers of 01/11/07, one Mrs. Z who came with her 3 children, had mysteriously escaped action from JAIPP officials, although she came along to the Bayan Lepas police station upon arrest. Her IC was not confiscated that night by JAIPP officials. She did not even have to turn up for the interviewing session at JAIPP on Monday. She turned out to be a teacher at a religious school whose staff were on JAIPP payroll. He appeared to have known some of the JAIPP raiders of 01/11/07. Were there double standards operating in the procedures of the Islamic bureaucracy at state level in Malaysia?

We arrived at the Penang syariah court at about 2.45 pm, to be greeted by a throng of photographers and journalists at the entrance. This time, we were given packed lunches. Proceedings started at 3.30 pm. JAIPP’s prosecuting officer, Khairul Azman Azizan, called upon our names and read out the sections under which we were to be charged. Upon mention of our names, we moved from the spectators’ seats to face the judge, Mohd. Ridwan Ghazali, at the front. None of us pleaded guilty, and only one was represented by a lawyer. All had appealed to the court for a grant of bail lower than the amount demanded by prosecutor. Most of us had large families, certainly by modern standards. In leaving our children behind at the morning, we did not expect the day’s proceedings to drag on until the evening. Other reasons cited included past services to the country in the capacity of a civil servant with an unblemished record. All reasons cited seemed to have had little effect; the judge did reduce the amount of bail, but only a little. The court proceedings ended at around 5 pm., when the court office accepting payments for bail was near extended closing time. Only 6 (including 4 in a family) managed to post bail in time. Even then, according to witnesses, the counting of the cash money was done slowly, perhaps intentionally, in order to deny the majority of us from gathering money and guarantors for the bailing process. Apparently, JAIPP was intent that the majority of us got thrown into jail, even for a day. Altogether, 36 of us (20 men, 16 women) who did not post bail in time were hauled into a chartered bus headed for Penang jail.

We arrived at the Penang jail at twilight – Maghrib time. Procedures upon entering the jail as a new inmate were so lengthy that we were compelled to perform Maghrib together with Isyak prayers during Isyak time (using an allowance whereby prayers’ times can be combined in emergency circumstances), at the lock-up near the recording department of Penang’s jail. We were given prison food in special prison trays for dinner before being hauled deeper into the jail, the men separated from the women, to our destined lock-ups designed for remand prisoners. At the men’s section, two under-20 year old youths were separated from us. The remaining 18 of us occupied 2 lock-ups, each with 9 of us. We had on us only what we were wearing and blankets given by the prison authorities. We were not allowed to bring into the cells our money, telecommunications devices and reading materials. A cell was only about 3 metres in length and 3 metres in width; one can imagine such a space being occupied by 9 healthy adults, who had to share one open lavatory (without walls), a bucket of water and a pipe. Bathing and ablution had to be done within the limited space just enough for one to squat in the manner of defecating. As we were not used to clean up ourselves openly in the bare, 2 of us shielded one who was answering nature’s call or bathing. The environment was dark and eerie – it was near the cell which used to be the venue to hang people to death. There was no arrow to show us the direction of Mecca; for our prayers, we had to ask for this from prison guards. We relied on the calls for prayers from the nearby surau (prayer house) to tell us the prayer times. Big rats, perhaps as large as kittens, passed openly in front our cell during the night. Everything was hygienically unfit for the performance of Islamic worshipping rituals, but we had to bear with such deplorable conditions. Ironically, it was the Islamic authorities who put us there. Were they concerned that we had not been able to execute our Islamic rituals properly since they began their crackdown on 01/11/07?

Throughout the next day (06/11/07), we joined in the daily prison chores, which included a medical check-up (with our wrists handcuffed) at the prison hospital, meals and occasional reports to the prison master outside our cell. It was a revelation to us when we got to mingle with other inmates. Most were Malays, many were held for drug-related offences, some had been held in remand for many, many years and suffered seemingly unending postponement of court hearings. They could not see any prospect of release in the near future even though they had not been convicted in a court of law. They wondered how ‘decent’ people like us also got ourselves into trouble with the law. Conditions in the prison were not conducive to making them better citizens if ever they were released. They told us not to trust prison guards, who had actually treated us better than they treated hard crime offenders. They overheard prison guards’ conversations on how we, as a group with supposedly many professionals, was in a position to divulge the true nature of dehumanizing conditions of prison cells. This would expose their abuse of powers within prison walls. At 3.30 pm., one Malay and 3 Chinese inmates, back from the court, entered our cell, making it altogether 13 of us in the now crammed cell. Toh (not the real name) disclosed to us the shockingly true picture of the goings-on in the cells. In Toh’s own words, they were treated like animals, without human rights. Unlike our cell, most cells were filthy. For their bath, they were allowed only 4 small bucketfuls of water. They were given rough, sub-standard blankets, unlike ours. Prison guards rode roughshod over them at will, to the extent of using physical intimidation. In my opinion, there was innate racism as well, as most prison guards were Malay. If that was how they treated non-Malay prisoners, how could non-Malays ever respect the Malays’ religion and race? We found these non-Malay inmates to be surprisingly tolerant. There was no hassle in their acceding to our request to make little room for our Asar prayers.

At around 4.30 pm., news arrived to us that we had been bailed. We thanked our fellow cell mates for the brief acquaintance, left the cells and commenced procedures to leave the gaol. Outside, JAIPP had prepared a bus to transport us to the Balik Pulau syariah court, where our bail had been posted. The movement there was not smooth as it should have been. Our bus encountered technical problems and stood stationary at the roadside at Sungai Nibong. 2 police trucks had to be called to continue our journey. By the time we reached Balik Pulau, it was already nearly 8 pm. We performed our prayers at the syariah court’s surau and signed our bail papers. I was astounded to find out that I had to sign 3 papers (one for each accusation) when in the court the previous day, only 2 accusations were read out against me. What ploy is this? But we were all fatigued; my adamance in not signing them would delay procedures for all of us. Out of sympathy for my friends, I reluctantly signed all 3 papers. I enquired on the discrepancy, and the court officer in charge simply assured me that the matter would be looked into. But of course it was never brought up to me later, indicating that the matter had been put to rest. Circumstances had forced me to deny myself my own human rights. On 06/12/07, I am to be tried on an offence which the prosecutor did not even file and mention in front of the judge. My trust in Malaysia’s religious bureaucracy and the administration of syariah justice in Malaysia has truly been shattered.

After signing the papers, matters were still not over. We were transported to Balik Pulau police station for interrogation by special branch officers. My interrogation took more than 2 hours. The special branch kept on apologizing to us for the raid, which was at the instructions of JAIPP. The special branch merely assisted JAIPP, which had a shortage of manpower. By 12 midnight, most of us were eventually released. The Balik Pulau police did prepare some packed dinner, but those of us who finished our sessions late did not get our ration. I left the station with my wife on a friend’s car to get our car which was parked at the parking lot facing the Penang state legislative assembly, a stone’s throw from JAIPP. I remember the parking attendant asking on the morning of 05/11/07, whether we were going to park there for long. We confidently answered, “No.” How wrong we were going to be. It proved to be the longest 2 days of my life, with a lot of drama. How relieved it would be if I suddenly woke up to find out that it was all a nightmare. But this was not to be. After all these years of servicing the country via a public institution, this is what I have received in return from the state: denial of my basic human rights, manipulation of my ignorance of the law, humiliation, and now possible conviction in an Islamic court.

In plaintive mood, I wonder to myself, “Is this Islamic justice?” For years, I have researched and written about Islam in Malaysia, sometimes in glowing terms, at other times critically. I never imagined that one day, I would be at the receiving end of state Islamic authorities’ heavy-handedness, and to boot, in such a degrading manner. My humanity was consistently violated throughout JAIPP’s treatment of me and my friends, who had innocently agreed to attend a company dinner on the night of 01/11/07. We have been treated as deviants even before our cases are heard in a court of law. I have lost faith in Islamic institutions in Malaysia, particularly in those which are supposed to administer justice and solve society’s problems in a loving and caring way. If these are the types of institutions that are to be created by Islam Hadhari, I sincerely wish that we all do away with Islam Hadhari. Such an Islam Hadhari is not only unIslamic, but it is also oppressive. Such an Islam Hadhari cannot be Islam, because Islam dispenses justice to all, regardless of ethnicity and religion. If even we Muslims have to undergo such despicable treatment at the hands of the coercive apparatus of an Islamic state, what hope do non-Muslims have of being dealt with justly by the state?

The author is an academic in a public university in Malaysia.