THE CICAK.com

You are Muslim, according to MyKad

By ANDREW LOH

Imagine receiving your identification card and finding out that you were “converted” to another religion.

Impossible? Not really.

At least, not to hundreds of Malaysian MyKad holders who have suffered this unfortunate fate.

Check out this excerpt from The Star on November 6, 2005:

KAJANG: Bulbir Singh, 65, has never changed his religion.
So it came as a shock to him to learn that he had “become” a Muslim overnight, when he collected his MyKad at the National Registration Department (NRD) in Putrajaya nine months ago.

The public used to brush such situations off as isolated cases, but it seems that more Malaysians have discovered that their MyKad particulars are wrong. The religion and gender categories contain a lot of errors.

Seputeh Member of Parliament Teresa Kok said she “had proof that more than 300 Christians had their religion stated incorrectly in (their) MyKad.”

Rev. Wong Kim Kong, secretary general of the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship of Malaysia (NECF), said 25 percent of his survey sample on church members in the country were incorrectly categorized.

There are many more Malaysians who have not reported MyKad errors to the National Registration Department (NRD).

NRD blames it on “clerical and technical errors.”

However, I beg to differ.

How hard is it to input data correctly onto a computer?

A form filled with complete information for identification purposes is a prerequisite for the issuance of MyKad. Can so many errors be made when the data is transcribed?

There are just too many errors and inaccuracies. NRD’s explanation is not sufficient.

Let us familiarise ourselves with the Law of Probability. If this law holds true, the number of discrepancies in religion must be more or less equal to the number of discrepancies in gender, address, phone number, name, race and other information on MyKad.

However, false entries in the religion category are far more common than the other categories.

Maybe someone is co-ordinating an ugly scheme behind our backs. I might be speculating, but I will proceed to state my case.

All errors in the religion category have affected non-Muslims. Christians became Buddhists, Hindus became Sikhs, and vice versa. What unnerves me, is the considerable number of non-Muslims who have been converted to Islam, according to their MyKads. Oddly, there have been no press reports of Muslims becoming Buddhists or Christians.

There are 60 percent Muslims and 40 percent non-Muslims in Malaysia. It is unlikely that these mistakes happen because of human error or by chance. There is some monkey-business going on.

Perhaps some of you might be think that this is no big deal. However, there are many legal consequences.

According to Malaysian Syariah law, a Muslim must have an Islamic burial. This means that if a deceased non-Muslim is wrongly Islamized on his MyKad, his family will not be able to conduct proper funeral rites.

There are more significant consequences.

Non-Muslim families cannot inherit properties of their Muslim relatives. Every single cent goes to the Islamic Affairs Ministry. What will happen to the families of Malaysians who were falsely categorized as Muslims?

For a non-Muslim, uncorrected error on MyKad could result in the loss of personal assets.

Despite public outcry, NRD has not released any official apology to those affected.

This whole fiasco goes against MyKad programme’s vision - “To provide uncompromising quality and customer service through highly secured solutions on a single card to spearhead the nation into the Information Age.”

However, NRD should be commended for working, albeit slowly, to simplify procedures for non-Muslims who want to correct their religion on MyKad.

In the past, non-Muslims had to provide NRD with documents from the Commissioner of Oaths and some religious certification, such as a baptismal certificates.

The process has been simplified.

But despite all this, one question remains - Who is behind all this hanky-panky?

A full investigation must be carried out, and the culprits punished. Nothing less will suffice.

More information on MyKad:
MyKad readers can be found in most banks. You can verify the information on your MyKad there.

—
ANDREW LOH is a staff writer for theCICAK.

He is a monstrously biased, rebellious 18-year-old who thinks that young people should rule the world, that Malaysian subtitlists should go for listening and language lessons, and that he is the third Malaysian Idol. Visit his site.