Well, that is the easiest way to view this case -- either that, or the court has ruled that Muslims are not human beings and therefore do not have human rights that must be respected.

Malaysia's top civil court Wednesday rejected a woman's appeal to be recognized as a Christian, in a landmark case that tested the limits of religious freedom in this moderate Islamic country.

Lina Joy, who was born Azlina Jailani, had applied for a name change on her government identity card. The National Registration Department obliged but refused to drop Muslim from the religion column.

She appealed the decision to a civil court but was told she must take it to Islamic Shariah courts. Joy, 43, argued that she should not be bound by Shariah law because she is a Christian.

A three-judge Federal Court panel ruled by a 2-1 majority that only the Islamic Shariah Court has the power to allow her to remove the word "Islam" from the religion category on her government identity card.

In other words, in order to exercise her human rights, Lina Joy must get permission from religious authorities whose own religious legal code forbids leaving the faith -- and imposes the death penalty on those who try. Incredible!

And here is what Lina Joy faces when she approaches that religious court.

In practice, Mr. Teoh said, Ms. Joy, who was born Azlina Jailani, will have a very difficult time getting the Islamic authorities to allow her to leave Islam. No one in recent years has done it in the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, where Ms. Joy is registered, he said. Those who have tried have been “threatened and cajoled,” Mr. Teoh said.

Indeed, part of what has happened to those who try is that they are imprisoned in religious prisons where they are subjected to great pressure to renounce their new faith as a condition of release. But maybe -- after several years of imprisonment for her faith -- the court will let her go. But we know what the public demands of apostates in the Muslim world -- we've sen it too many times.

Perhaps most distressing is this quote from the judge who wrote this abominable decision.

"You can't at whim and fancy convert from one religion to another," Federal Court Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim said in delivering judgment in the case, which has stirred religious tensions in the mainly Muslim nation.

A pity that this pathetic excuse for a jurist is not familiar with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

This principle is a fundamental, essential human right. Will the international community speak out against this atrocity against religious freedom? Will the American government act in defense of this fundamental human right? Or will the world, once again, kow-tow to the barbarism that is Islam?

H/T Jawa Report, Michelle Malkin, Sundries Shack, 7.62mm Justice, Absinthe & Cookies

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