Parliamentarian Ibrahim Ali (Ind-Pasir Mas) has urged the federal government to come up with an Apostasy Act to address an alleged rise in apostasy among Muslims.

“I think that a Akta Murtad (Apostasy Act) must be passed to handle the apostasy issue,” the MP said today when debating the motion of thanks for the royal address.

He claimed that there were many cases of Muslims getting close to other religions and some turning apostate, something that he believes is worrying.

"At present, there are already Muslims who are turning to the church to find peace," claimed Ibrahim.

However, the Pasir Mas MP said, blame must also be apportioned to the Muslims themselves as some of the more well-to-do were not fulfilling their responsibility to help their less fortunate brethren.

"Less fortunate Muslims are not being helped, thus the Christians are using charity as a means to get close to (poor) Muslims," he said.

Ibrahim's call joins the chorus of NGOs that are calling for urgent action against what they say is a rising number of Muslim apostates in the country.

Most prominent of these are former Selangor exco member Hasan Ali, who is touring the nation to  "expose cases of apostasy" that he said are masterminded by Christian missionaries.

At the height of the controversy of the Damansara Utama Methodist Church raid, 21 Muslim NGOs had urged the federal government to formulate anti-apostasy laws.

Following this, Deputy Education Minister Puad Zakarshi proposed a Faith Crime Act while PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said full adherence to hudud law would be more effective.