Chow Kon Yeow: 曹观友

Really, Penang is to get a monorail over Penang Bridge. I do not know when and whether it will materialise but it will be a piece of good news. Read about it:

Melewar keen to build monorail over Penang Bridge
By Zuraimi Abdullah and Francis Fernandez
bt@nstp.com.my

June 23 2006

MELEWAR Industrial Group Bhd is interested in building a high-speed monorail network over the current Penang Bridge as part of its wider plan to construct a mass transit system for Penang Island.

“There is a plan to build a monorail over the current Penang Bridge and we mentioned it during our presentation to the Prime Minister,” the group’s head of business development Datuk Eric Lim said in an email reply to Business Times.

The cost of building such a network is believed to be in range of RM150 million.

“The monorail over the Penang Bridge will probably be in stage 2 because what is most important is to ensure that Melewar concentrates on the proposed monorail within the island,” said Lim.

Melewar is proposing to build a 51.12km Hi-Track ultra light loop monorail system in Penang within 28 months, if it gets the nod from the Government.

Its total fixed lump sum cost for the project is RM1.58 billion, documents provided by Melewar show. The same documents also show that Melewar expects the rail network to start churning profits in its ninth year of operations.

“This is one monorail that will be linked from point to point unlike what you see in KL. Once the proposed project is completed, we need to work with the relevant authorities on the extension to the mainland province,” said Lim.

Meanwhile, at a press conference yesterday, Melewar managing director Tunku Datuk Ya’acob Tunku Abdullah said that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was pleased with its proposal for the Penang monorail system, and had asked the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) to study it. (more…)

Article 11 of the Federal Constitution relates to freedom of religion of its citizens.

However there is no law on the definition or scope of the right to religious freedom under the said Article 11.

There were several court decisions with regard to the right to religious freedom.

In Re Susie Teoh, Abdul Malek J seems to suggest that the right to freedom under Article 11 includes the right to choose religion for he said that “right to profess and practice religion of her chosen religion”.

In Daud Mamat, Suriyadi Halim Omar J held that freedom of religion under Article 11 does not include the right to apostate.

This morning, I received from Parliament two booklets of answers to written questions posed by MPs at the last session. There I found two questions and answers which may throw some lights on the above issue.

First, Fong Po Kuan (DAP Batu Gajah) asked the Prime Minister to state existing procedures that allow an individual who have embraced Islam to renounce the faith in accordance with the right to religious freedom in Article 11.

The answer was given by Dato Dr Abdullah bin Md Zin, the Minister in the PM’s Department in charge of religious affairs.

The Minister said that as of now, the Negeri Sembilan Islamic Religious Administration Enactment carries provision regarding application from persons who want to get out from their Islamic religion. The Syariah Court can hear the application to leave the religion and then would make a declaration that the person has renounced his religion.

PAS MP for Pengkalan Chepa Dato Haji Abdul Halim bin Abdul Rahman (former Kelantan Deputy Menteri Besar) asked the Home Affairs Minister to state the number of applicants from the Malays to change their names in their identity cards for the past five years and the number of applications approved and the reasons for such applications.

According to the reply, 3220 Malays applied to have their names amended in their MyKad for the years 2001 to 2005.

A total of 2685 applications were approved.

The reasons for applying to change names included change of religion, names that do not sound nice in Islam and to standardize names with other official documents.

The answer did not give the breakdown figures according to the three categories for name change.

But the Ministry’s answer indicates that there are Malays who have changed their religion and wanted to show their (new) names in their MyKad.

It is interesting to note from the two sets of answers, it is indeed possible for Malays to exercise their rights to freedom of religion.

The NS Enactment and the National Registration Department have procedures to that effect. But we also know that these applicants would face administrative obstacles when they submit their applications. There is a pending case involving Lina Joy.