Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - The Christian widow of a dead Malaysian launched a legal battle Monday against Islamic authorities who want her husband buried according to Muslim rites because he converted to Islam years ago.
The case bears similarities to a dispute involving the burial of an ethnic Indian soldier last December that triggered a raging debate over the legal rights of religious minorities in Muslim-majority Malaysia.
Rayappan Anthony, a 71-year-old ethnic Indian van driver who died Nov. 29, converted to Islam in 1990. But his family claims he made a formal declaration renouncing the religion in 1999, though he failed to notify the Islamic Affairs Department about his decision.
On Friday, state Islamic authorities obtained approval from the Islamic Shariah Court to claim Rayappan's body, but the man's family blocked them from doing so.
Rayappan's widow, Lourdes Mary Maria Soosay, a Roman Catholic, filed an application in the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Monday seeking a declaration that her husband died as a Christian, the national news agency Bernama reported.
Rayappan's remains are currently in a hospital morgue pending a court decision on which side has the right to take possession of his body.
High Court Judge Kang Hwee Gee scheduled Dec. 11 to hear the case, Bernama said. Court officials couldn't immediately be contacted for details.
Religion is one of the most sensitive issues in Malaysia. Nearly 60 percent of the country's 26 million people are ethnic Malay Muslims, while the large ethnic Chinese and Indian minority communities mostly practice Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism.
Last December, a national debate erupted over the case of Maniam Moorthy, a former commando whose body was taken by Islamic authorities after Malaysia's Islamic court ruled he converted to Islam before his death.
Moorthy apparently never informed his family of the conversion, and his widow failed to convince the civil High Court to give her custody of the body.
The High Court said it has no jurisdiction over the Islamic Court, implying that non-Muslims had no recourse to justice in a dispute with Muslims because they could neither appeal to the Islamic justice system nor the civil system.