The Malaysian Insight

THE Kuala Lumpur High Court granted leave to single mother Loh Siew Hong to challenge the unilateral conversion of her three children today.

Loh’s three children were converted to Islam by her ex-husband Nagashwaran Muniandy without her consent.

Loh filed her application for judicial review on March 25, naming the Perlis Registrar of Converts, Perlis Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council, Perlis Mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin and the state government as respondents.

She is seeking a declaration that her three children are Hindus, and that Nagashwaran did not have the legal capacity to allow the registrar to register their children as converts without her consent. 

She is also seeking a declaration that her children, as minors, do not have the legal capacity to convert to Islam without her consent.

Additionally, she is seeking reversal of the children’s conversion to Islam dated July 7, 2020, and annulment of any associated registration as such.

Loh is also asking that applicable laws contravening the Federal Court ruling be declared unconstitutional.

Loh has been separated from her children – twin 14-year-old girls and a 10-year-old boy – since 2019 while she was in hospital due to injuries she claimed she sustained from physical abuse by her ex-husband.

She was granted full custody of the children last March, and finally located them early last month at a Perlis welfare home only to discover they had been converted to Islam. – August 1, 2022.