MALAYSIA USCIRF–RECOMMENDED FOR SPECIAL WATCH LIST KEY FINDINGS I n 2020, religious freedom conditions for religious minorities and the Sunni Muslim majority in Malaysia remained largely the same as in 2019. The Malaysian government requires members of the Sunni Muslim majority to adhere to a strict, state-approved interpretation of Islam and regulates the internal affairs of Muslims, leaving them little freedom to practice according to their conscience. The pairing of Malay ethnicity with Islam continues to infringe on the religious freedom rights of ethnic Malays. In addition, Shari’a courts have historically declared several minority Muslim groups as non-Muslim, which persistently creates a grey area for those Malays who adhere to what the government considers “deviant” forms of Islam. For example, an ongoing court case to determine whether Ahmadiyya Muslims can legally identify as Muslims remained unresolved after being remitted to the High Court in August. In February, the two-year-old pluralist Pakatan Harapan coalition collapsed and was replaced by the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition. The PN coalition brought together the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), a political party that has sought to incorporate corporal hudud penalties into the state-level Shari’a system. In a November coalition meeting, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin stated that the PN coalition would fight secularism and liberalism and insisted that his government would hold fast against challenges to Shari’a. The transition of power has spurred an increase in judicial harassment from the police of human rights activists. Malaysia’s systematic emphasis on Sunni Muslim identity continued to place particular pressures on non-Muslim communities. On December 1, the state of Kedah in northwestern insular Malaysia demolished a Hindu temple on land ostensibly unauthorized for the building. This demolition follows a trend in recent years in which authorities have ordered the destruction of hundreds of Hindu temples, which officials disingenuously explain as a matter of land usage to avoid framing the destruction as religiously motivated. NonMuslim communities remain forbidden from using Arabic words that authorities claim are exclusive to Islam, such as the word “Allah”. Such restriction affects the ability of Christians and others to import, print, and distribute religious materials such as Bibles. However, Malaysia’s top court has set a date in 2021 to hear the case—first raised in 2008— of an indigenous Christian community’s right to use such language. Non-Muslim communities are also prohibited from proselytizing to Muslims. All religious conversions, including between non-Muslim faiths, face serious restrictions. Some converts have won the right to adopt their new religious identity openly, but only after taking the issue to the High Court. The Malaysian federal government deemed atheism unconstitutional, and those who are ethnically Malay and identify as nonreligious are at risk of criminal prosecution for apostasy. Blasphemy is criminalized at the federal level in Malaysia’s secular Penal Code, and at least five states criminalize apostasy with fines, imprisonment, and/or detention in a “rehabilitation” center. The special task force set up in June 2019 to investigate the disappearances of five individuals, including Pastor Raymond Koh and Shi’a Muslim convert Amri Che Mat, continued to delay the release of its findings throughout 2020. In November, Commissioner James Carr adopted Pastor Koh through USCIRF’s Religious Prisoners of Conscience Project. During the coronavirus pandemic, public and official attitudes hardened toward migrants, including Rohingya refugees. In May and June, officials temporarily banned refugees and migrants from mosques as they reopened religious buildings following the Movement Control Order issued to stop the spread of the virus. In addition, non-Muslim houses of worship, including Hindu temples and Christian churches, were not prioritized for reopening and faced different reopening times than mosques. RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT • Include Malaysia on the U.S. Department of State’s Special Watch List for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA); • Fund and implement training on community-based policing between the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security and their Malaysian counterparts to promote better shared practices on interacting with faith communities and protecting houses of worship and other religious sites; • Urge the Malaysian government to repeal the federal and state-level laws criminalizing blasphemy and apostasy, to remove the constitutional link between the ethnic Malay identity and Islam, and to release the findings of the special task force investigating forced disappearances such as the case of Pastor Koh; and • Work with Malaysia and regional partners to ensure the safety of migrants and refugees, including those fleeing ethnic and religious conflict, by facilitating access for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to refugee and migrant camps as well as by contributing to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Trust Fund for Humanitarian Relief Efforts. KEY USCIRF RESOURCES & ACTIVITIES • Factsheet: Rohingya Refugees in Southeast Asia • Op-Ed: Malaysia’s Unwelcoming Shore for Refugees Fleeing Religious Persecution (in The Diplomat) 78 USCIRF | ANNUAL REPORT 2021