Jais says it ‘inspected’ church, not a raid

By Shannon Teoh

August 11, 2011

Jais director Marzuki Hussin said in a statement today that Jais officers only inspected the venue after the dinner had ended. — Picture by Jack Ooi

SHAH ALAM, Aug 11 — The Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) has denied that it “raided” a dinner at a church last week, insisting that no force was used in its “inspection” to ascertain if Muslims had attended the fundraising event.

 

Jais director Marzuki Hussin added in a statement today that Jais officers did not interrupt the event and only inspected the venue after the dinner had ended.

“Accusations that Jais raided, used force and trespassed are wild accusations,” he said, adding that no arrests were made even though he claimed that it was within Jais’s legal bounds to do so.

According to Marzuki, Jais officers and police only entered Damansara Utama Methodist Church’s Dream Centre in Petaling Jaya after the dinner had ended at 11pm and were ushered out by the organisers after just 10 minutes.

He added that the 12 Muslims who had attended the event were only asked to provide their details and directed to attend counselling sessions.

The Pakatan Rakyat Selangor government has said that it will wait for Jais to complete a full report on its raid of the church dinner last week before deciding on the next course of action.

Jais had said that it is investigating the organisers of the fundraising dinner held at DUMC for attempting to convert Muslims under Section 4 of the Non-Islamic Religions Enactment 1988.

The raid had caused uproar among religious communities but Muslim lobby groups have rallied behind Jais.

Selangor executive councillor for religious matters Datuk Hasan Ali also defended the raid by claiming that the words “pray” and “Quran” were used in the presence of the 12 Muslims who were among the 100 attendees of the dinner.

This was among the evidence cited as proof by the PAS leader that Christians were attempting to convert Muslims during the function.

If found guilty of trying to “persuade, influence or incite” a Muslim to be inclined to any non-Islamic religion, become a follower or member of a non-Islamic religion or forsake or disfavour Islam, the organisers of the dinner will face a jail term not more than one year and/or a fine of RM10,000.