Malay Malaysians can apply to change their names on the MyKad due to religious conversion if they could produce the necessary documents to support their application, a National Registration Department (NRD) official said.

"We are not the department to ascertain whether the applicant is an apostate or not. If the applicant can produce a syariah court's declaration that he or she has renounced Islam, we can change the name," NRD public relation officer Jainisah Mohd Noor told malaysiakini today.

She was asked to respond on a parliamentary written reply yesterday which disclosed that the government has approved the application of 10 Malay Malaysians between 2001 and 2005 to have their names changed on the microchip-based identity card on religious ground.

Jainisah said she has no particular knowledge of the approval of the 10 but reiterated that the NRD was merely involved administratively to scrutinise the application based on requested documents and make a decision accordingly.

Nyonya Tahir's case

Deputy Home Minister Tan Chai Ho (left) meanwhile said he believed the applicants could be those of Malay Malaysians born Muslims, but who had never embraced the religion and practised other faiths, such as the recent case of a 89-year-old woman, Nyonya Tahir.

Nyonya, who was of ethnic Malay and died two months ago, was declared by a syariah court that she was not of Muslim faith at the time of her death after considering court evidence that Nyonya practised Buddhism, ate pork and later married a Chinese man who never embraced Islam.

Her religion became an issue after her children registered her death with the authorities. As Nyonya's name was that of a Muslim Malaysian, the authorities had earlier insisted that she should be buried according to Islamic rituals.

The most significant change of a Malay Malaysian name is linked to the dropping of bin (son of) or binti (daughter of) in their identity card. At present, only Islam the official religion must be stated in Mykad.

When contacted, Syariah Lawyers Association president Muhamad Burok said the government is not authorised to change the Malay Malaysian's name due to religious conversion unless consent has been obtained from the syariah court.

Other applications

In his written reply to Teresa Kok (DAP-Seputeh) in Parliament, Home Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said the government received 100 applications from Malay Malaysian between 2001 and 2005. Of this, 10 percent was approved, four percent rejected and the rest are being studied.

The minister also said a total of 9,788 applications were received for the same period out of which, 7,443 applications were approved.

From Chinese Malaysians, 1,436 applications were received (75.5 percent approved, 0.8 percent rejected and 23 percent being studied).

There were 1,509 applications from Indian Malaysians (51.3 percent approved, 2.9 percent rejected and 45.8 percent being studied).

For the other races, Radzi said 6,743 applications were received, 82.7 percent was approved, 0.7 percent rejected and 16.6 percent being studied.

However, no statistics were available for a breakdown according to religion.