Kota Kinabalu: Despite their High Court victory, a father and his three children seeking to correct the wrongly recorded religion on their identity cards (IC) faced another setback when the process was delayed pending approval from the National Registration Department (NRD) headquarters in Putrajaya.
Abdul Manap Bakusai @ Abu Bakar, 67 said he was disappointed over the process after waiting nearly 20 years for his case to be resolved in court.
“We were told to apply again, even though the purpose of our coming was that once we were called, we would be issued new identity cards straight away with our religion listed as Christian,” he said, outside the state NRD at the Sabah Federal Government Administrative Complex, Tuesday.
He hoped the process would be completed soon, noting that the family is currently using temporary identity cards that continue to state “Islam” as their religion.
The Court allowed an application by Abdul Manap and his three children from Pitas to correct their IC on religion after finding that the NRD had wrongly recorded their details.
In delivering her grounds of judgment, Judge Datuk Celestina Stuel Galid raised serious concern over the Department’s practice of assigning a person’s religion without proper factual or legal basis.
She ruled that the case did not involve renunciation of Islam, accepting evidence that the plaintiffs and their family had always practised Christianity, supported by identity documents, baptism records and letters from churches.
On Feb 10, the family submitted the court order, applications for new identity cards and all related documents.
“We are now waiting for approval. It is not fully completed yet, but I hope this can be completed soon,” he said.
His eldest son, Visious Abdul Manap, 43, is worried that the family still faced risks as long as their documents continued to wrongly list “Islam” as their religion.
“Because of this religion issue, for my first child I had to register him as being under a single mother so that he would not be recorded as Muslim. Three others have their religion left blank in their official documents.
“Two of my children were registered without a ‘bin’, while three of them have their religion left blank in their official documents,” said Visious, who had four children.
Abdul Manap’s daughter, Kartini Abdul Manap, 41, said the wrong religion on her identity card only caused years of hardship.
“It was very difficult to register my children’s birth certificates. We also carry the burden of being non-Muslim especially during the fasting month, and even going to church becomes difficult because our IC shows Islam,” she said.
