In a divided two to one decision, Malaysia’s highest court refused to recognize a Muslim woman’s conversion to Christianity.  Lina Joy tried to change her religious status and remove the word Islam from her identity card to marry her Catholic fiance.  Under separate laws in Malaysia, Muslims must marry within the faith.  The abandonment of Islam is sometimes punishable by fines or imprisonment.  Here, the Islamic Sharia court rejected Ms. Joy’s appeal.

Ms. Joy, born Azlina Jailani, has lost her job, been disowned by her family, and went into hiding last year after receiving death threats.  She now may seek asylum in Australia.

Malaysia’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but declares all ethnic Malays are Muslim and thus are not allowed to convert.  In this multi-racial country, Muslims constitute sixty percent of Malaysia’s population of nearly 25 million people.  Critics say this ruling underlines the increasing separation of Muslims from others. Additionally, it reinforced the notion that Islamic laws should have primacy over secular laws in some aspects of Muslims’ lives and the question of the separation of religion and state.

For more information, please see:

–Malaysia rejects Christian appeal

–Malaysia Top Court Doesn’t Honor Muslim’s Conversion

Coal mines in Da Antou, China, are cracking and destroying the homes above. Over the last several years, buildings have slumped and split apart because of the caverns created by the coal mines. Because of China’s growing economy, and thus need for energy, coal companies are expanding production. Coal meets 70% of China’s energy needs. More than half of the houses in Da Antou, forcing 400 people to move. In Shanxi province, Government officials estimate that more than 7,700 square miles have been hollowed out by miners, leaving the earth riddled with empty caverns and causing the crust to sink in more than 1,800 places. 

 The increase in mining also effects farmers. After the coal is extracted, it is trucked across the province. The black dust then falls on corn and wheat crops. The mining has effected the Da Antou water system in, forcing farmers to haul water from a communal pipe installed in the village square, which also sometimes goes dry. Also, according to farmers, terraced fields have been left unworkable because of the sinkholes.

 The Chinese Work Safety Administration reported 4,746 miners were killed in Chinese coal mine accidents last year, making it among the world’s deadliest. 

For more information, please see:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/31/AR2007053102191.html chinadigitaltimes.net/2007/06/chinas_energy_rush_shatters_village_edward_cody.php

www.freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=12027

www.newsique.com/world/chinas_energy_rush_shatters_vill/

A Constitutional Court in Thailand banned the Thai Rak Thai political party and barred over one hundred of its leaders from politics for five years.

Founded by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the Thai Rak Thai is the country’s most popular political party. The party aggressively courted poor rural voters and won mandated elections in 2001 and 2005.

According to the New York Times, the court found the party guilty of election fraud, paying small parties to run against it in the April 2006 election to satisfy a requirement for minimum participation. The Court acquitted the Thai Rak Thai’s rival, the Democrat Party, which ruled the kingdom before the Thai Rak Thai’s election in 2001. The Democrat Party faced similar charges of election fraud.

The rulings have been described as one of three major hurdles for the government in its attempt to steer the country back to democracy. Thai Rak Thai supporters, however, may pose strong opposition to these rulings and make these hurdles difficult to overcome. Analysts say this dissolution of Thailand’s most popular party would undermine the military’s claim to restore democracy.

Demonstrators have called for an end to the current military leadership that came to power after a coup that ousted the former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, prior to an election that his Thai Rak Thai party was expected to win. Demonstrators criticize the Court as a military appointed tribunal. Shinawatra is now living in self-imposed exile.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Thaksin Supporters Rally Over Ban – 31 May 2007
Channel News Asia – Thai Security Clampdown Indefinite: Coup Leader – 31 May 2007
FT – Thaksin’s ban from politics raises doubts on democracy – 31 May 2007
Channel News Asia – Thaksin Ban Reshapes Thailand Politics – 31 May 2007
BBC News – Thai ex-PM’s Party Ban ‘Unfair’ – 31 May 2007
The New York Times – Thai Court Disbands Former Prime Minister’s Political Party – 31 May 2007

Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, will spend another year under house arrest in her Myanmar home, according to the Associated Press. After spending 11 of the past 17 years in confinement, the Myanmar government was due to release her this week.

The government has held Suu Kyi because they claim that she threatens public order. As head of the Myanmar’s National League for Democracy party, her party won the general election in a landslide in 1990. After the victory, the military government refused to hand over power.

Although the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union have strongly condemned her continued sentenced, the Myanmar’s military junta continues to hold her and approximately 1,200 other political prisoners.

This week, National League for Democracy party supporters held a 300 to 500-person rally for her release. In response, the military government stepped up security around Suu Kyi’s home.

For more information, please see:

Myanmar military rounds up Suu Kyi supporters

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/276485/1/.html

Myanmar extends Suu Kyi’s house arrest

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070525/ap_on_re_as/myanmar_suu_kyi_5

China launched its one-child per couple policy in 1980 to try to maintain swift economic growth and feed and control the country’s growing population of 1.3 billion people. Recently, however, the central government in Beijing announced it was time to strictly enforce the one-child policy. In Bobai County of the Guangxi Province, primarily a rural, farming village, family planning officials threatened families who failed to pay fines for having more than one child. Some officials have even been accused of forcing women to submit to abortions or sterilizations. In response, however, thousands of peasants and townspeople gathered at government and birth control centers, clashing with police. Twenty-eight people have been arrested for instigating riots against China’s one-child policy.

Locals in Buffalo Village, however, have managed to beat China’s system. The records at the county maternity hospital are filled with lists of multiple pregnancies.  Mothers have used fertility drugs to get around the one-child policy by having twins, triplets, quadruplets, and even quintuplets. China does not impose fines on a mother who has multiple children at a time.

For more information please see:

Washington Post – Birth Control Crackdown Sparks Riots In Rural China – 23 May 2007

BBC News – Chinese Challenge One-Child Policy – 25 May 2007

Channel News Asia – China arrests 28 in family planning riots – 23 May 2007