Mahathir's daughter denounces Muslim 'apartheid'

KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 16: She's a firebrand, articulate and just like her dad, passionate and outspoken.

Marina Mahathir, liberal-minded daughter of Malaysia's longest-serving premier, is at the centre of a storm after saying Muslim women in her country suffer from ''apartheid'' and discriminatory rules that don't apply to non-Muslims.

The eldest child of Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled for 22 years until 2003, offered no apologies for her outburst and said part of the problem was the mixture of politics and Islam.

''I think it's a very dangerous game that started some time ago and it's continuing all these times. There's no getting out of this,'' she told Reuters in an interview.

''You have two sets of laws for citizens of the same country, one is more disadvantageous than the other. To me, this is like the situation in (old apartheid) South Africa,'' the 48-year-old Muslim said in her office in a posh Kuala Lumpur suburb.

Just over half of Malaysia's 26 million people are ethnic Malays, who by definition here are Muslim.

The ruling United Malays National Organisation is the lynchpin of Malaysia's multi-racial coalition government but it faces a challenge from the fundamentalist Islamic opposition party, PAS, for Muslim votes.

Marina's outburst was sparked by recent amendments to Malaysia's Islamic family law that make it easier for Muslim men to take multiple wives, to divorce them and to take a share of their property.

Islamic or sharia laws in Malaysia are drafted by the government's Islamic Affairs advisers and apply to Muslims only, but they must be approved by state and federal legislatures before they come into force. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, an Islamic scholar who took over from Mahathir in 2003, later agreed to put the changes on hold, pending consultations with women's groups.

Writing in her column in the local Star newspaper last Friday, Marina noted: ''In our country, there is an insidious growing form of apartheid among Malaysian women: that between Muslim and non-Muslim women.'' THE BACKLASH Inevitably, there have been angry reactions, with one group, the Muslim Professionals Forum, calling her ignorant.

''Marina's recent outbursts likening Muslim women in Malaysia to black South Africans under apartheid is completely ignorant of the reality on the ground. This renders a great disservice to a country praised by many as a model Muslim nation,'' said the forum founders, Farah Pang Abdullah and Siti Jamilah Sheikh Abdullah.

PAS, the Islamic party, also condemned her.

''The statement is very dangerous, giving the impression of the inability of sharia laws to settle cases involving Muslim women, which is not fair,'' PAS deputy chief Nasharuddin Mat Isa told Reuters.

The mother of two said she was undeterred.

''I've been reading letters of complaints from women about all their matrimonial problems, all of them are complaining the (sharia) courts do nothing for them.'' ''What sort of Muslim man who leaves wives and their kids with no money to buy food? Are you not ashamed you don't work and your wife works and pays for everything and then you claim her property?'' ''Islam is wonderful, there is nothing wrong with it in the Koran. But everyday application, that's where the trouble is.

Where is the justice when man can divorce the woman by SMS?'' Marina ticked off her detractors who labelled her as a bad Muslim for not donning a tudung (headscarf).

''I think, it's not for them to judge. What is a definition of a good Muslim? I try and do my best to help people, I don't make judgment on people...I don't lie, I don't cheat.''

REUTERS