21st February 2007
Terengganu must abandon ‘Mat Skoding’ plan
Sisters in Islam notes with disappointment that Malaysians are once again being enlisted and ‘trained’ to spy on one another. (‘State turns to ‘Mat Skoding’’, Star Nation, 20 Feb, 2007)
Not one year ago, the Cabinet ordered the Federal Territory Religious Department to disband its ‘snoop team’ as it was ‘tantamount to an invasion of privacy’. A few months prior to that, the Cabinet had issued a similar order vis-à-vis the ‘snoop squad’ planned in Malacca. Over the last year, civil society groups, Ministers, religious scholars, leaders and members of the public have made unequivocal statements regarding ‘snooping’ activities, emphasizing that these actions are a violation of human rights and privacy, and that they create a culture of surveillance and vigilantism.
Numerous reports and incidences in the country have also proven that ‘moral policing’ by state religious authorities and their ‘auxiliary services’ have often led to rampant abuses of power.
In spite of this, the Terengganu Government has unashamedly announced its plans to initiate its snoop squad, this time with the added incentive of ‘rewarding’ its spies.
SIS is perplexed at this continued preoccupation with spying on the private lives of Malaysians. It is as though the State Islam Hadhari and Welfare Committee has learnt nothing from the past experiences of the other states. By setting up this snoop squad, the Terengganu State Government has also displayed a flagrant disregard for the views of Cabinet. It has also shown no interest in the views of the public and public figures who have similarly denounced this obsession with ‘moral policing’.
SIS reiterates, once again, that these acts are against the exhortations of Islam to respect an individual’s right to privacy and human dignity. Spying and humiliating the public not only violates Qur'anic injunctions but also common standards of community trust. The Mufti of Perlis, Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin put it succinctly when he said that ‘state religious authorities must stop spying, snooping and the practice of looking for couples to be charged for khalwat’ because such practices were ‘against Islamic principles of privacy and were trespass’.
We call on the Terengganu State Government to call off its plan and to stop turning the people of Terengganu into spies of the state. The public funds that will be wasted on this can be put to better use, particularly for public education and awareness raising on a whole range of social issues.