SIO69: Malaysian Officials Want To Hunt Down Atheists

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode sixty-nine. I am your host, Thomas Smith. Just gonna wait for the immature jokes. Ok, all done. Thanks for joining me today. I've got an interesting interview. You know, you may have heard or seen in the kind of skeptic news circles this story of a group in Malaysia that was part of the Atheist Republic Facebook group, but like a local Kuala Lumpur chapter of it. There was a picture of a gathering that got leaked and kind of went viral. And then Malaysian officials, people in the government, all kinds of people in Malaysia, were calling for essentially violence and imprisonment and other all kinds of terrible things just for these people having gathered under sort of an atheist banner.

0:01:18 Thomas: Now, this is interesting because an old friend of the show, an old friend of mine named Adrian, who I spoke to a long time ago on the show back when it was Atheistically Speaking, was actually in Malaysia and was actually a member of this group. Now, he wasn't actually there because he happened to be traveling during when this meeting was, but he was in the group. He was going to go and then the date got changed. So this is a really interesting opportunity to get a look into what was going on there. He's going to explain the situation in Malaysia, the the group, what happened, kind of the fallout. So really interesting stuff, I'm really glad he reached out. So here he is. Here's Adrian.

0:02:08 Thomas: Hey, Adrian, thanks for coming on the show. Now, we talked a while back, right? Back in the atheistically speaking days?

0:02:15 Adrian: Yep, back in the old days.

0:02:17 Thomas: Yeah, it has been a long time, so if you don't mind, remind us who you are, and we'll talk about a little bit about why you're here in a minute.

0:02:26 Adrian: Well, thank you so much for bringing me on after, you I reached out to you and brought this up. But my main background is, I was a teacher in Korea, and I found out about your show, and I've been a patron and listening to the show since 2014, and I'm pretty outspoken atheist. And in 2015, I moved to Malaysia, and I became a teacher there. And as time went on, I came across a group, a Facebook group, which is run by the Atheist Republic. And they have these networks and Facebook groups that are very closed and private, it and they, the admins there, they basically vet us and they ask very specific questions about who we are. And the group that is right now, from what I remember, is, um, the Atheist Republic uh Kuala. So from there, of the big news outlets that kind of caught on was very, it came about basically when there was a meeting, a kind of group meeting with no motivation to do anything really, just kind of to gather.

0:03:01 Thomas: Hmm, just a meet-up kind of thing. Yeah, so

0:03:47 Adrian: So Yeah, So The the Meeting was supposed to be kind of like a private get-together so people in the group could actually meet one another, so it Actually

0:03:57 Thomas: Just to be clear, so this is a group of presumably mostly ex-Muslims, right?

0:04:03 Adrian: It's not just ex-Muslims because Malaysia is a very diverse country. They have Chinese, they have Indian, and they, they have Malays. So are by birth identify as Muslim. So in the group, there are Malays and who identify as ex-Muslim. And when the meeting was organized, it was meant to be just kind of a, you know, a gathering. So you didn't even have to identify as ex-Muslim to, be in the the gathering, you Know, just for Just First

0:04:37 Thomas: Okay. But it was organized through the Atheist Republic group that was local to that area.

0:04:39 Adrian: Yeah Yeah And You know, the people in the page that know one another, right? So, you know, we talked with each other and we organized a meeting to have fun, relax, talk to each other, you know, maybe share, share a drink. So there's nothing actually on the surface that's wrong about it, right? Nobody in the group is actually breaking any specific laws, and legally, they identify as Muslim. The tricky thing in Malaysia is, talked about this last time I was on the show, but for those who didn't have a chance to listen to that, Malaysia is a very complicated government because for non-Muslims, which means non-Malays, they have civil courts, which is a secular legal system. But for those Who are Malays and who are Muslim, they have to adhere to Sharia law when it comes to divorce, religion, private matters, right? So even when it come to religious offenses, it's dealt through the Sharia courts.

0:04:44 Thomas: Okay.

0:05:08 Thomas: Well, of course not. Yeah.

0:05:58 Adrian: But it's even more complicated because just like you have state laws, you also have state Sharia along, so in each of the states there's a basically a sultan or a king figurehead, and then you have the advisors, the religious advisors, identify as muftis, so like they're the religious advisers to the to the king, and the king can pardon any religious offense. But But each state has their own rules and legality to the extent that they can carry out laws. So, event took place in Kuala Lumpur, and there are actually no legal that were had. So, like, if you identify as ex-Muslim, there aren't any strict apostasy laws.

0:06:47 Adrian: But given that the government is quite corrupt and they can find ways to navigate the the political system, they can bust you on any on these kinds of things. So that they, the way that this story kind of exploded out into the media, was there was a meet, the the kind of group gathering, which was kind, you call a bunch of friends and let's meet at a bar, let's meet at restaurants or whatever, and people are drinking, socializing. Nothing is wrong. Nothing that's happening is actually illegal, but they posted a photo, and what happened was that photo became public through the Atheist Republic page, and the Ateist Republic page is a massive page, which is actually public, but our page was a private page, and the picture was put on our private page, and it managed to get leaked out.

0:07:45 Adrian: And when it got leaked out, very pro-Islamist blog picked it up, and then they wrote about it, and then the local news picked up on it and made a story about it saying that, you know, this is an atheist gathering. And of escalated where you had government officials saying that atheists need to be tracked down and hunted, and that this is a of not enough education and not enough Islamic education. The only tricky thing is there's nothing in the federal territories, which is what Kuala Lumpur represents. They don't have a king, they don't have anyone like that, so they just have the main constitutional law, which is the civil courts, and then you have Sharia law, who deals with all matters pertaining to religion.

So it's kind of tricky in this circumstance because the event took place in Kuala Lumpur, so there's nothing that actually took place that was illegal. It's just that there are ex-Muslims that might have been there, and don't officially recognize themselves as ex-Muslim. So the government wants to track down these people. So they're going to say that these people need rehabilitation and that they need to repent. And if they find that person, maybe they might coerce them into repenting, or you know, they might have to pay a fine, or they might even get public caning, so

0:09:18 Adrian: Example, not a matter of religion, but there was a case not long ago where a model was caught drinking. She was Muslim, she was Malay, and she had to pay equivalent of like a few thousand dollars and she got six public strokes of the cane, which is pretty standard.

0:09:37 Thomas: So there's a lot to break down here. Let me... No, that's okay. Let's try to focus in on, I the legal aspect because I think there's that and then there's what happened and what we should think about that.

0:09:39 Adrian: Yeah, okay, sorry. Yeah, right.

0:09:51 Thomas: I'm just trying to break it it all down because I'm absolutely not familiar with Malaysia at all, except from the last time we spoke three years ago or whatever.

0:09:51 Adrian: Yeah, yeah, okay.

0:10:00 Thomas: I'm just curious, what legally makes someone Malay? Is it ethnicity? Because you if you're Malay, then you are a Muslim by definition and you have a separate, there's this Sharia law applies to you and all that. What what legally is the standard there?

0:10:10 Adrian: Right, yeah. You have to have a parent, least by birth. So you have to have parents that would be identified as Malay, and all it takes is one of the parents to be Malay because if you are Malay and you're married, both people must be uh legally identified as Muslim by law because on your ID card right that you carry around, it says there that you are Muslim by birth and there's nothing you can do to change that, you know.

0:10:29 Thomas: Hmm. Oh, and you're, yeah. Okay. I was going to ask you're forced into that. And then it also sounds like, so you can't marry a non-Muslim if you're a Muslim there.

0:10:54 Adrian: You can, but you have to convert. It's

0:10:56 Thomas: Oh. I just laughing because it's like, yeah, you can marry a Non-Muslin as long as they're a Muslim. It's kind of what you're you're saying, okay.

0:11:04 Adrian: Uh, it it's kind of tricky, especially if you marry like let's say if I was born in Malaysia and I was a Malaysian citizen and then I marry a Muslim who's not Malaysan, right, and they're not and they are Muslim, have to convert, but the opportunity is I can I think if I, let's say I was born into a Christian family, right?

0:11:18 Thomas: Wait you have to convert, sorry what are you converting to Okay, okay.

0:11:31 Adrian: I'm Christian Chinese or Buddhist Chinese or whichever, or Hindu, and I meet someone who's Muslim, and they're not Malaysian. I have to still convert for my marriage to be legally recognized. Doesn't apply to every other group, so if you are Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, right, you can be, your your marriage is a civil marriage, right, so you follow, you fall under the the secular law, but in, if you aren't Malaysian but you're not Muslim, your marriage is legally defined as a civil marriage and has to be, but when you involve Muslims, you have to convert, especially if you are Malay and you marry to someone else, that person has to, because their marriage will not be recognized, and because the matters of marriage are a religious matter, right, for Muslims, they follow the Sharia law.

0:11:48 Thomas: Right okay So and it sounds like you don't have a choice if you're born in Malaysia and you're a Muslim, I mean, you just are, that's your religion, and you're not allowed to leave, right? Are you, you allowed to, I, are you just stuck forever, you have to identify as Muslim otherwise you're breaking some laws? Wow.

0:12:44 Adrian: No, It's, and the thing is, yeah, and it depends on a state to state level. So there are very strict interpretations in this. So when you have, when you live in a more, there are very conservative states in Malaysia. And one of the states is run by a very strong Islamist group, and they have a law called, or they wanted to enact a law called, Hoodoo law, which is basically the kind of law that you would find in Saudi Arabia, so if you are caught stealing, you can have your arms cut off, if you, if you apostatize, you can actually be sentenced to death, there's a, there's... there's a very kind of – there

0:13:40 Thomas: Are there Any liberal states that aren't quite as bad, or is it all pretty much hmm

0:13:44 Adrian: Are more liberal states. I mean, if you live in KL, a stronger – the federal law, so they don't have these really strict laws for apostasy. But it's kind of a – you have to apply for it, like if you want to do it legally, right? You can renounce Islam. Right. The penalty for that, which actually no one has formally done it in Malaysia, no one has actually formally renounced Islam. That's Malay.

0:14:16 Adrian: They don't do it. And, you know, from, from there, there's mistaken identity. So if you claim that you're not Muslim and there is a mistake with your name and you're actually Christian and you were born that way and your whole family, then they accept that, right? Right. Sometimes what happens is if you convert for the purposes of marriage. Right. When you were not Muslim before, they give you an opportunity to revert back.

0:14:12 Thomas: Oh they just don't do it, okay. Oh Interesting.

0:14:50 Adrian: The example I gave you. So if I'm Chinese. And I marry a man who's Muslim, but is not Malaysian. I was, and you know, I'm forced to convert, and then let's say we get a divorce and I want to I'm if

0:15:05 Thomas: Is that allowed though, are you're allowed to get a divorce in a Muslim marriage? Oh.

0:15:10 Adrian: You are, there, even between malaise like, Malaise can file for divorce, but um there's, there are a lot more technical aspects that I don't really know the details of too much

0:15:15 Thomas: Okay, okay So there's probably, has, has to fulfill some sort of requirements

0:15:23 Adrian: Yeah. There, there are criterias, right, the the kind of the interesting thing is if you're an apostate, right, they do is they give you an opportunity you to find out, are you actually of sane mind, are you cognitively functioning properly, that are you not doing this because maybe you have have a mental illness, right, and they give you a an opportunity to repent, so if you repent, right, they can either reject it or allow it depending on sincerity and evidence and all this information right, um, what is, is if if you, you're completely unrepentant, right, they follow through and they they give you a chance to have rehabilitation, and after the rehabilitation, if they, if you know that you go to an imam or a religious leader for counseling to try to convince you, and if you are still unrepenting, Kalantan, then it can be very nasty, depending on the circumstance of what state you live in. So I can give you a name of a state. For example, there's a state in Malaysia called Kalantang, right?

0:15:24 Thomas: Okay. Yeah okay

0:16:30 Adrian: It's Northern Malaysia, and it's the province or state that I told you that is run by the Islamist group. So the punishment in Kalantank for apostasy is you either get 36, six months detention in a rehabilitation center, and if still you don't repent, um, you get the death sentence and you have to forfeit all property that you have.

0:16:55 Thomas: It sounds like what you're saying is this just doesn't happen often, because people, it's just not worth it, nobody does it. Yeah, and

0:17:00 Adrian: Yeah. The amount of cases so far have been next to nothing, but I, there has been a very interesting case in the Supreme Court where Malay woman, she converted to Christianity and she fought very hard to go to the highest levels of the Supreme Court. Her name is actually Lina Joy. So what she did is she was Muslim and she converted into Christianity, technically.

0:17:28 Thomas: That's not allowed, right? Right.

0:17:30 Adrian: It's not allowed, But what she wanted to fight for more than anything else was her ID tag, because when you are given your identification, you're yeah, it says you're Muslim. And she was fighting to get that removed. So what the court granted her was the opportunity to keep or change her name, because she was, she was born with a Malaysian name, or sorry, a Muslim name, and they only granted her the opportunity to change that name and that was it, that was the most that they could grant for her, but they allowed her, and they don't, they did not formally recognize her conversion, so

0:17:37 Thomas: Right just Says Muslim. If you're Malay, hmm.

0:18:04 Thomas: Okay she would

0:18:15 Adrian: Yeah

0:18:15 Thomas: Still be subject to Sharia law and all that stuff, a

0:18:18 Adrian: The thing is, because she went to the federal court, the the federal Sharia court, she did not suffer penalties, because she, I guess they, they offered her not the chance to keep her religion, but only change her name, or not keep her religious, or keep her original religion without consequence, right, but for it not to be formally recognized in any, anyway, it's just tricky when you live in the country because everything you do is subject to Sharia law on a personal level. So, like, if it's Ramadan, right, do you, are you familiar with Ramadan at all?

0:18:57 Thomas: Little bit, fasting and all all that, yeah

0:19:00 Adrian: Yeah. Yeah. The thing is, it's a legal thing in Malaysia. So if you are caught eating during fasting, the fasting time, you can be penalized. They can find you. You may also be potentially taint for it, depending on the severity of it and your and your repentance towards it. So, you gets kind of tricky in this kind of circumstance because this all started from a Facebook group. And it was just,

0:19:30 Thomas: And now Well, I wanted to clarify too, because now let's talk about what, how the law applies in Kuala Lumpur, is that, is that a weird situation because it's a capital, kind of like Washington, D.C., where it has some, like, it's not, is that why you said it's under federal law or

0:19:45 Adrian: Yep, yep. It's a federal territory. It doesn't have its own state laws. So there is a federal administration of Sharia law. But the apostasy, there aren't any severe punishments for it. That's

0:19:46 Thomas: Okay right right, hmm So if you live there, you can kind of, that you're a little more free, I guess, as a Muslim than other states. Okay, interesting.

0:20:10 Adrian: Right. But, I mean, that's definitely, relatively speaking, because given the way that the government does function, they can try to spin it in a way where they might accuse you of doing some other crime that they might punish you on a federal level, or try to say that, like, you're acting immoral or you're countering this vice. So even if they can't get you the highest level of punishment, they'll still try to bust people on it, on any technicality that they can find.

0:20:16 Thomas: Yeah. Okay.

0:20:49 Adrian: And it's pretty scary because there are government officials, who are representing at the highest level who are saying that, like, these atheist groups and individuals in the group need to be targeted, hunted down, brought to justice, and, you, the way again, because they've been led astray by, you know, corrupt Western secular liberal values, that's, that's how, how the media has spun it in Malaysia, especially the very conservative Malay media.

0:21:24 Thomas: Okay and so in this backdrop then, the meeting that happened was in Kuala Lumpur, right?

0:21:30 Adrian: Yeah, it was in KL.

0:21:32 Thomas: Okay, so a picture was taken. It was just a meetup, having drinks, that kind of thing.

0:21:37 Adrian: Yeah. I mean, you just socialize, get together, you know.

0:21:41 Thomas: Wait, Hold on, sorry, but is drinking illegal for Muslims there? Or no? Oh It is okay, so okay.

0:21:45 Adrian: Yes. Yep. But the thing is, they can't prove that even if the person was there, they can't say that there's no evidence for them to say that you were drinking alcohol unless unless you had a religious police there, right, who could actually demonstrate that. And,

0:22:03 Thomas: So that's not that much of a concern in this, or like are they more worried about, uh, just being associated with atheists and and the implications of that? Okay, right.

0:22:13 Adrian: You know, maybe monitoring what the person might have said in the group and try to find out, you know, does this person actually identify as non-Muslim? Because then, like I explained, the whole apostasy becomes kind of tricky and problematic. And also on a personal level, because, you know, they have some of these people have families and they have, um, they have to be living a double life at times. There are people there from all different backgrounds, so Chinese in Indian Muslim, some are vocal, some are less vocal, some some even are not Malaysians, and they're from Arab countries, right, and they identify, and sometimes they post like, "Oh, what should I say? What should I do if I if I'm eating or drinking and it's not halal? And am I going to be in trouble?" Or what are the, you know, and there are people there to kind of tell them and help them to kindof navigate, um, what they can get away with and what they can't, and that they should being mindful and careful because it's, it doesn't.

0:23:20 Thomas: I mean, it's kind of a support group, right? I mean, it's dealing with the realities of Yeah, go ahead.

0:23:22 Adrian: Yeah. It's, that's exactly what it is. It's a support group. Yeah. It's like, you know, you would find with any group that on Facebook, that's a closed private atheist group. And, you know, it doesn' t mean that you have to agree with what everyone says. People argue back and forth, but some people post some pretty personal stuff about their lives and their concerns with how they supposed to teach their children who go to Islamic schools when they don't believe anymore. It's very tough because to go to the mosque and pray. There are people there who monitor and watch and make sure that people go and pray on a regular basis.

And if you don't do that, you know, family members get suspicious and they could report you. They could report You to the religious police and, you You know, then you get investigated, you're questioned and you're asked, But they don't serve, even the religious police don't serve as actual civil servants of the government. So they can't actually arrest. But what ends up happening is they can call the police and say, well, this person has been behaving this and this way. And because the police is a very corrupt in Malaysia, If you thought America's policing was bad, Malaysia's is on another level in

0:24:11 Thomas: Right.

0:24:46 Adrian: Terms of, you know, corruption, and what they're basically, government thugs. They will arrest you. They'll take bribes. If they don't like you, if they think that you're being countered to the government, very easily and quickly have you arrested, and you don't hear from that person anymore. More

0:25:06 Thomas: So I, I don't know if you said this in the beginning, but you were in this Facebook group, but you weren't at this particular event, right?

0:25:08 Adrian: Yeah. I I actually missed out on it because, um, I had to leave to go back to Canada. So I initially had planned to go and meet some of these people because I was interested in talking to them and knowing how how it is to live this kind of life and how they feel about the the religion and politics in the country, and it got it got moved to a day that I was not around. But I'm still in the group, I'm still keeping contact in the groups, and people are actually supporting one another. We're, very it's, it's been kind of a moment where it's united a lot of us in the group, but it's also made a lot of people scared, like, "Oh, who..."

0:25:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:59 Thomas: Talk, talk about the reaction of of what happened when this was, I, do you think it was maliciously leaked out the press?

0:26:00 Adrian: I Because the group that posted it in in in the Malay language is a very kind of pro-Islamist group, and uh, they often post credible looking articles in English, and then when you read the Malay, they made, they're very slanderous, right? They're making it seem like, "Oh, we're we're a bunch, we're a bunch of like loving free mason." It, very conspiratorial, you know, like borderline Illuminati kind of nonsense, you that we're these people who are who are causing these Malays to be led astray, and that these secular Western values are these Muslims, and that we should be very careful and weary about groups like this, and that they don't belong in Malaysia.

0:26:59 Adrian: Because one of the things that you have to do when you're a Malaysian citizen, which goes back to the law, uh, you have to, to be a citizen, you have to acknowledge the existence of a god, and it doesn't matter, what it's part of the pledge, and it's illegal

0:27:15 Thomas: Okay, so this is even, no matter who you are, no matter if you're born there or not, you have to acknowledge. How does that work? Forgive my ignorance, but how does that work with Buddhists?

0:27:16 Adrian: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Because Buddhism is a very flexible kind of religion, I think, uh, can just simply say it, you know.

0:27:32 Thomas: It just counts. They're just like, okay, that counts. Okay. Close enough. Is that a kind of thing? Okay. Okay. Interesting.

0:27:35 Adrian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, well, you're, you're a religion, and the thing is, in the constitution, they, the, the government has been trying to spin it as these are not patriots of Malaysia, these are, these are people who are looking to cause trouble and to stir things up, because look, see, the Malaysian constitution doesn't even recognize atheism, which in fact it doesn't, uh, because you have to acknowledge in the pledge, as a citizen, that One of the key tenets is, uh, a belief in God.

0:28:08 Thomas: Right. Right. I believe in God, but you're saying Buddhists kind of get by with that, like that counts.

0:28:16 Adrian: Yeah. Yeah, and the, you know, it's actually not long ago, you had the, I think it was Qasim Rashid, he was that Ahmadi right in in Malaysia, they clamped down. And they're very hardline. And they say that these groups are not recognized as Muslims.

0:28:16 Thomas: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, Ahmadi Muslims don't count as Muslims? Yeah.

0:28:38 Adrian: Not even Shia Muslims count. So they're not even recognized as Muslim. So it becomes even trickier in how do you legally distinguish them? Because they are a minority and they live in Malaysia, but they have to, I guess, live a secret double life. And, you they're on a surface level, yeah, but privately, no. And when these groups have tried to build mosques, the government had flat out said no. And funny enough, they counted and pluralism as one of the deviant ideologies in Malaysia.

0:28:41 Thomas: Oh okay.

0:28:59 Thomas: Do they have to pretend and just kind of go along with the Sunni tradition?

0:29:25 Thomas: That's not good.

0:29:25 Adrian: Yeah. Yeah. It's a spiraling, terms of conservatism and hardline, it's been getting progressively worse in Malaysia. I mean, before the 70s, did not have this kind of, these legalities and the kind of strong religious conservatisme. 40 years ago, you would barely see a woman even wear a headscarf or a hijab.

0:29:42 Thomas: That's interesting.

0:29:52 Thomas: That's So weird. Yeah. Why is that? That seems to be the case in a lot of of places. I wonder why that is.

0:29:59 Adrian: But now, they want to go back to the original, the pure Islam. So to them, they see it as the Quran, it's the Hadith and all these other legal or not, you know, scholarly interpretations, they're they're a distraction because formally Islamic school of thought in Malaysia is called the Shafi, which doesn't recognize legal, past legal precedent and interpretation for laws. So they go directly to the Quran, they go direct to the Hadiths and then they interpret that from a legal point of view.

So, they've been kind of steering the country towards a more strict, conservative kind of shadowing in a way and looking up to Saudi Arabia and and the more conservative Arab countries as Because in Malaysia, in society, what's becoming more and more common and prevalent is even women wearing niqabs. And that is not a thing that you would find in Malaysia even 10, 15 years ago. More and more women in conservative areas are wearing niquabs. And The the The province that, or the state that I told you about, where death, one of them, that where death is, um, a punishment for apostasy, they have gender segregated, uh, areas that you go, like the theaters or the bus. I don't know how strict

0:31:15 Thomas: Really interesting.

0:31:32 Adrian: They enact it, but it's, it's there, and you can be punished for it.

0:31:32 Thomas: So Uh, back to the group then, so when this happened, what were the kind of things people were saying in the group? Did did people leave the group? Were people really scared? Are they still scared? Oh,

0:31:46 Adrian: It's A mix, um, there, are people in the group that are, uh, scared, and I, I think there's a potential that some of them may be investigated even, because some of the people in the group have maybe family members or people that they know that are, that work for the religious police or are entrenched in the government. So So it wouldn't surprise me if they've been investigated. What the group has been trying to do is keep a very low profile for now, because recently what happened was, same group that wrote about us, our page, and the meeting, meeting, they are trying to go into people's Facebook page, find as many personal details that they can find, and just post it.

0:32:38 Adrian: So I have an article where my name is mentioned, but I could tell that all the information that they got was directly from my Facebook page. So they went in And they wrote where I worked in Malaysia. They wrote my ethnicity, my background, and they took my post and they and they translated my post. And what I what I said that that I'm I'm trying to suppress government control of people's religion in Malaysia and, you know, know, they're trying to spin it in a way to make it look like we're these kind of rebellious political activists, right?

0:32:47 Thomas: Wow. Well, So they view you because you're a visitor there, right? So they view you as, even though you're not under the legal requirements of Malay people or anybody who is like a registered Muslim there, even thought you're under those requirements, they're, is it a sort of xenophobic thing of, look at these outsiders stirring up religious kind of thing?

0:33:20 Adrian: They care. It's less about xenophobia and more about fear of their religion being challenged. So kind of see me, oh, like, look at this Westerner who's reaching out to the international community and trying to get this out in the public and who's trying to slander our religion here, bringing in Western values and secularism and all of this. And they write it like this is a negative thing, and that this is cancerous to the foundation of Islam in Malaysia. I mean, if you have the prime minister who openly has said in the past that, you know, one of the problems of Malaysia and Muslims that are, the biggest one of the biggest problems they're facing is secularism in the country and more liberalism. It's a, it's a problem, and they view it as, you know, a seditious act, that you're, you know, going against the the values and the foundations of of Malaysian, uh, the Malaysian political system and the government.

0:33:49 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah.

0:34:52 Thomas: Are You going back, or are you back?

0:34:54 Adrian: I'm currently in Canada right now. And I mean, I wanted to keep a little, I got a little bit scared because they went on my profile and Got my information. And so for now, you know, keeping a low, a little bit, but I do plan on staying in Canada for a prolonged period of time. It was just that I did get a little bit scared because, because my girlfriend is Malaysian, and we had to both remove as much public detail about ourselves online.

0:35:02 Thomas: Right.

0:35:24 Adrian: Because there have been cases where people have posted things against Islam and, you know, next thing you know, they're being investigated because they posted something on Twitter or Facebook.

0:35:23 Thomas: What Yeah. Absolutely, and I, sorry, I didn't want to, I wasn't sure what your situation was, so I can, I can, and I can cut all that if you want.

0:35:43 Adrian: No, no, no. I think It's important that people know that. And I'm okay sticking out my neck in this. It's just that it's... I am happy is this got a lot of press internationally. You had ex-Muslims in Canada. I mean, Ali, Ali Rizvi, Majid Nawaz, Richard Dawkins even posted about it. It's out on Friendly Atheist. The BBC actually interviewed one of the members our group under a pseudonym, right? That this needs to be known as much as possible, but we just have to be very diligent and careful in the group about not giving too many specific details. Because if we give out any details that might be used against us, that it might pin someone down in the group, right?

0:35:43 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:36 Adrian: There are people there in the group that we're worried about might be potentially investigated, and we don't want to give anything to any of the authorities that might being used against them. Because on a legal level, going back to the beginning, nobody did anything wrong. It's just that they're trying to find that this was an atheist meeting, and that the Malays that are there must be atheist as well. And we're going to try to get them. We're going to try to make sure that they are not spreading vice, and they're not spreading immorality or anything like that. The

0:37:12 Thomas: So Are the, uh, the actual repercussions you're worried about, or the group is worried about, they're all from the government, or are they also worried, has there been any history of violence against atheists or ex-Muslims, uh, on the part of just citizens, just

0:37:32 Adrian: Problem with it is, it's a very messy landscape, and people don't publicly identify as atheists who haven't been Muslim before in Malaysia. So if you have any outspoken, they're usually Chinese or Indian, but they're also vocal activists on a political level. So when they criticize the government, there have been cases where people have been suddenly arrested because they might have led a rally, or they might've led a anti-corrupt march or something like that. So there's less about the fear on a public level of us. It's more about what might happen to those people in their personal lives.

0:38:17 Adrian: And there may be instances where they might suffer violence that might not be reported, but the media, the media is very quiet about atheists in Malaysia. And this event actually has brought out conversation, which is probably a positive thing because you don't get to hear about atheists. You don't get to hear about these groups in Malaysia. You always hear about, you between Hindu families and Christian families and Buddhist families and like the messy complications that might happen when there's divorce and, you know, who gets to claim what religion. But as a whole, like, as long as you claim a religion, you're better off than if you're not, if you don't claim any religion in Malaysia as an official status.

0:39:10 Adrian: And the do much. It's very controlled by the government. And any loud, outspoken media voices are usually shut down or blocked. Like, when I was in Malaysia, a lot of atheist websites I was noticing were slowly and progressively being blocked or censored. Patheos, friendly atheists, blocked, censored, so the only way to bypass that is, you know, you go on VPNs, so it's a bit tricky to answer that question, because it's just, there isn't a conversation about atheism on a national level, because people would view them as, you immoral and a to the government that, you know.

0:40:00 Adrian: They could be devil worshippers or they're Satanists or, you know, they're trying to lead Muslims astray. And the government just seems to always be afraid, afraid that the people are going to lose their religion and they're going to stray away and that Absolutely.

0:40:16 Thomas: Yeah. But But it's, this is always a good way to stay in power, like, it's any, you know, like that's, this, we see the same thing with Trump in America, like, like having a victim mentality and promoting a hatred of any other group or a fear of any other group is a good way to get people motivated and to stay in power, it seems like. Is this sort of the same thing going on over there, do you think?

0:40:41 Adrian: And the hilarious thing about it all is the majority. I mean, it's about a 69, 70 percent majority in the country, and have all of the rights and privileges on every level. The government subsidizes their religion. The government subsidizes building mosques, sending people overseas to Mecca to do the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Government favors as the religion in the country and that everyone Everyone else should just shut up and follow. And if you don't like it, then you should leave.

0:40:57 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:41:22 Adrian: And they always cry victim, that everyone is trying to undermine their religion. They're trying to undermine their hegemony, their control of the country. So they, they love the victim mentality because they get to, you know, go show what's happening in the West and say, look at the, look at how much they hate us, look how much hate our religion, we give power to these people in our country, this is what's going to happen. So they love playing that card. So On

0:41:54 Thomas: Anytime you've got immense privilege in a country and whoever you are, I think any erosion of that looks like an attack. I think it's a pretty common theme. The Muslim majority seems to be in an immense place of privilege in Malaysia, and they don't want to lose any bit of that.

0:42:13 Adrian: Every level, I mean, if you have a law that says the only one, the only, only ethnic group that's allowed to be the head of the state can only be Malay and can only be Muslim. That demonstrates a huge thing. You can't be prime minister if Malay, if you are not Muslim, that's it. You cannot be prime minister of the country. You can't be head of state. It's in the law. Was always meant to be, uh, they always claimed that they were the original people, and that this, that the religion was always the main religion in the country, so therefore they should be the ones ruling it. I I feel really to to be able to speak about this given that, you know, know, the the mess that's going on in the news recently with Donald Trump and everything, but I think it's very important, because there are people in the group who risk a lot, they risk their lives, their reputations, their families, everything to go on the group and to just share some some opinions. No one in the group did anything wrong.

Even if they didn't identify as atheists, they would still be welcome. If they were uncomfortable with identifying as that, it was a meeting, it was gathering. I just want people to know who are hearing the story that that group so far has been the strongest in terms of we are other's backs, and that we're stronger than it was before, much more.

0:42:53 Thomas: Yeah,

0:43:51 Adrian: People are trying to help out one another. We're trying to keep as much anonymity. We're tying to talk and help out on another. If someone needs help with this and that, people are offering as much help as possible. They're offering legal help. They are trying to find lawyers that might do this pro bono without getting paid to try to defend their rights if they get arrested or if they are taken to the courts. So there are people there that would offer their services. And I think that this has actually helped bring out the lack of conversation in Malaysia because religion is, very stable and the quote unquote peaceful because everyone is just told, you know, to shut up and be in their place and don't question the authority and everything will be okay. And I

0:44:45 Thomas: Right. When you get to control everything and just be, and no one really questions it, then yeah, sure, things are great for that majority group, huh?

0:44:54 Adrian: Think that this has now internationally put a spotlight on Malaysia to show moderate Islam in a country that's supposed to be a very progressive and modern country is not. Um, should be looking at helping and supporting those and making it more know pressuring governments as much as possible, whether it's like journalists, or to call this out that even when you live in a, you know, progressive country like Malaysia, you know, relatively speaking, that the core problem in this extends even politically is the religiosity in the country and the dominance of, you Islam in the country that has kind of eroded a lot of the secular strongholds that that's been in the, and it's not getting better, but if, if, if this is public and it has been, which is good, it might actually make things better, which I just wanted people to know that if there's any way that you could support or, you know, lend a hand to an ex-Muslim or anything like that, that this is, people should know about it.

And I'm just really happy and thankful that you gave me this opportunity to come on here and share that, despite that it might not be current hot topic on the news. But because

0:45:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no problem. Yeah, I'm really interested to hear about it. Thanks for coming on and explaining it. And is there anything specifically that we can do other than just trying to raise awareness?

0:46:26 Adrian: Of the difficulty of the situation, and it's a very legal specific thing, if there are groups, I don't know, groups in America that might provide potential asylum to those who might want to leave the country due to fear of being arrested or prosecuted. Right, like if you can help out on a legal level to give people asylum or to relocate people, and if they, if there are ex-Muslims who need help, to lend a, lend a hand, if you cannot give people resources, because I'm, I'm just, I'm a member in the group, right, and I don't have a lot of legal standing in Malaysia.

0:47:17 Adrian: I don't have a lot of power to do much. I just know that if I could get people aware of the situation, and if you have an opportunity to protect and give voice to those ex-Muslims in Malaysia, then to do so, I mean, that's the best thing that you can do. If it becomes more public, then it might put pressure on the government to not do anything, something seriously dramatic, or they might just call off this whole thing, this whole investigation. But the Malaysian government is going to be very quiet about what it does from now on. So we are relying on a lot of people to share information more so than anything. So if you can get access to any legal or information that might help people relocate if they need to relocate or leave the country to provide it.

0:48:10 Adrian: Because I don't know myself too many of those resources. It would have to be lawyers and officials who care about this happening. Otherwise, it would just be suppressed and people might get arrested and thrown in jail, or you know, they lose their jobs without any consequence, and it would be looked at as, like, this is a good thing that happened to these people, right, this is this is the just thing that happened, but just trying my best to let this be known to others, that it, that it's important, that kind of happened to ex-Muslims and atheists in Malaysia, because, because we're a very silent minority, and nothing like to this scale has ever happened before. And we just want to make sure that the people that might suffer from it are as safe as possible and nothing serious happens to them. That's the most that I could hope for. If you have any knowledge of any legal institutions that might offer political asylum or refugee status, to help out as much as possible or offer your services.

0:48:35 Thomas: Yeah.

0:49:17 Thomas: All right. Well, thanks for coming on and explain that to us. And And hopefully we can, it is tough to compete with the Trump news cycle anywhere, really. But I think it is very valuable to bring that perspective to the show. And, you know, there are a lot of places where it's just not easy to be an atheist. It's not easy, to be a non-Muslim or a non whatever. And thanks for breaking that down for us, Adrian. And let me know if there's any follow-up to this at any point. Keep in touch on how this goes. I hope that the government backs down. I hope no one in the group suffers these consequences, but we'll have to keep an eye on it.

0:49:54 Adrian: Much as I can update, when I get a consent and approval from the members in the group about sharing any information, I'll let you know as soon as I get.

0:50:06 Thomas: Perfect.

0:50:06 Adrian: All right, thank you so much.

0:50:07 Thomas: All right, thanks, Adrian.

0:50:20 Thomas: Thanks again to Adrian for taking us through all that. Very interesting to get a little departure from the US centric news and talk about some other parts of the world for once. Sorry to all my non American listeners for how American centric this podcast is, but hey, that's where I live. Let's, and there's some stuff going down here. But this was a really interesting look into, as much as I don't by any means want to minimize the very real grievances in this podcast, this country at all. There's other places that are worse. And it's interesting to hear what it's like to try to be an atheist in Malaysia right now. And there's many other places where it's even worse than that. But yeah, that's sort of a fake religious freedom they have there.

0:51:07 Thomas: I found it particularly funny. Funny in a bad way, of course, but funny in a sort of dark way. When I asked, well, can you marry a Muslim if you're a non-Muslim? And he said, Adrian says, yeah, yeah, sure. As long as you convert, it's just like, uh, so no, you can't marry a Muslim. If you're non-Muslim, you have to convert. Uh, so stuff like that, that we take for granted in this country with, with our pretty robust religious freedom. Uh. It's interesting to learn that, you know, it could be, it Could be worse other places. And then another thing that occurred to me is this is a real opportunity to look at how humans in general, just tend to act a certain way when they're the majority. And it's a challenge throughout the world.

0:51:52 Thomas: You know, this isn't some, when we talk about racial injustice in America, this isn't some uniquely white problem or uniquely American problem. I mean, anywhere, I believe it's like when I was talking to Alix Jules, and I said, you know, humans are humans are human. Or he said, I don't know, one of us said that. And I really do agree with it though, if it was him. And of course I do, if it was me. But I really do think that humans do this when they are a majority group somewhere, when they have power, political power, religious power, any threat to that becomes, even though they have immense privilege, any thread to it is viewed as this attack. And people in power like that, no matter what the group is, it's not inherent to any one group. No matter what the group, they're not able to see it in perspective.

0:52:40 Thomas: They just see it as losing something they already have and they crack down. And this scapegoating of minority groups is a very universal theme. And basically all I'm saying is long story short, I mean, when people want to complain to me like, well, what about racism against white people? The answer is like, Well, it's just not a huge problem in this country. It doesn't mean it couldn't be a problem in hypothetically some different society somewhere like it could be there's no, there's nothing that makes white white people inherently more racist than any other group of people. It's just, it's just history. I mean, it'S just how history unfolded in this country. So I don't know. It's Just something that occurred to me while I was listening to Adrian. So I want to thank you guys for listening as usual. That was, that was really cool. I actually also did, by the way, I tried to hunt down to find a group or organization, maybe that we could donate to, to help the situation.

0:53:34 Thomas: I'll be honest, I spent 10, 15 minutes Googling. I just wasn't finding anything. So if anybody out there knows of any group, charity, NGO, anything like that, that is working toward religious freedom in Malaysia or is working to provide any sort of asylum for people in Malaysia, let me know, definitely email me. I just, I wasn't able to find anything.

I don't know if it, if it's a question of it not existing or my not Googling properly, but I definitely put some effort into it and I wasn't able to come up with anything. So I wanted to do that and maybe present it in the show notes, but I wasn't able to find anything. So get back to me, anybody, if you happen to be able to fine something.

But other than that, unfortunately, there's not much we can do other than raise awareness of what's a pretty horrendous situation there, to merely be a member of a group and to gather with other atheists, or not even necessarily atheists, and to have government officials officials literally saying they want to hunt you down for that. I mean, that's, that's pretty horrifying. So my thoughts definitely go out to the members of that group who are facing those challenges. And as soon as I hear of some way we can help, I will put it out to you guys. All right. Thank you for listening. Thanks to Adrian for getting on here and speaking out about it. And I will see you guys on Thursday.