Unity govt should provide mediation centre to resolve issues between Muslims and non-Muslims

KUALA LUMPUR - Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Religious Affairs) Datuk Dr Mohd Na'im Mokhtar, proposes the unity government to provide a mediation centre to resolve conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims outside the court.

He was responding to a case of a dispute over an Orang Asli child custody in Rompin, Pahang.

Na'im commented that the process was informal and it required a suitable platform for those who faced problems that could be resolved out of court.

This, he said was because it involved conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims and generally such cases involved two different courts which were the Syariah Court (for Muslims) and civil court (for non-Muslims).

"The case involves conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims, a non-Muslim father, a Muslim mother and a Muslim child. It involves two different courts which are the syariah and civil courts.

"We do not want any party to take this opportunity to start any conflict and unrest. We want to create a society that is united and understands each other," he said at Karya Bestari's 10th Quran Anniversary ceremony at the World Trade Centre (WTC), here, today.

However, he said the matter still needed to be studied in detail by the authorities before mediation process could be implemented, whether in a civil court or otherwise.

The most important part of the process, he said was to have mediators comprising experts in syariah law, civil law and child specialist.

"With this proposal, I believe that an informal way could solve the problem and can be achieved fairly, and the most important thing is that the interests of the children are taken care of," he added.

Recently, a video in relation to the case has recently made its rounds on social media and received millions of views on TikTok.

The one minute and 31 seconds video showed a distraught mother and daughter at the Kuantan Court.

It is believed that the nine-year old girl was the child of a divorced Orang Asli couple in a custody battle.

The girl was taken care of by her mother who converted to Islam. The mother claimed that the girl had been neglected by her non-Muslim father.

The Kuantan High Court had ordered the child to be handed over to his non-Muslim father through a "habeas corpus" order on Thursday.

Meanwhile, commenting on a video of a pesantren (religious borading school) in Indramayu, Indonesia which showed the founder and students of the school practicing deviant teachings at an event which was also attended by Malaysians, Na'im said a committee will be formed as soon as possible to look into the matter.

"We will form a committee involving syariah experts as soon as possible led by the Islamic Religious Department of Malaysia (Jakim) to study this pesantren. Then, this study will be brought to discussion by the committee.

"Next, the committee will hold a meeting and make a proposal which will be submitted to the National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs (MKI) to decide," he said.