AFP reports that a Malaysian high court yesterday ruled that the 2009 conversion to Islam of three Hindu children to be unconstitutional. The court said that the father-- who converted to Islam and brought the children with him-- had failed to take the mother and children to Islamic authorities for their consent to the conversion. If the conversion had been upheld, the Hindu mother of the children would lose custody-- which a court granted her in 2010-- since under Shariah law, a non-Muslim parent cannot share custody of converted children. Earlier this month, the government withdrew a proposal to change Malaysian law to allow conversions of children to Islam by one parent.
UPDATE: The full text of the opinion in In re the Certificate of Conversion to Islam, (High Court, July 25, 2013) is now available online.
