Kisah Sajat Dapat Liputan The New York Times

Raline

Kisah Sajat Dapat Liputan The New York Times


Transgender Woman Flees Malaysia After Prison Threat for Wearing Hijab

Selepas sekian lama menghilangkan diri sejak hangat diperkatakan mengenai penahanannya di Bangkok, Sajat memaklumkan dia kini berada di Australia.

Nampaknya, selepas berhijrah ke negara itu, kisah Sajat atau nama sebenarnya Muhammad Sajjad Kamarus Zaman mendapat liputan media antarabangsa, The New York Times.

Menerusi laporan tersebut, Sajat berkongsikan kisahnya yang diburu pihak berkuasa kerana tindakannya bertudung dan berpakaian wanita.

Kata Sajat lagi, dia ada bertemu dengan pegawai jabatan agama Islam pada Januari lalu namun mendakwa ditendang tiga lelaki dan buah dadanya diraba. Kata Sajat lagi, pada hari yang sama, dia digari dan ditahan serta ditempatkan di pusat tahanan lelaki.

“Mereka merasakan tidak mengapa untuk menyentuh bahagian peribadi dan payudara saya kerana mereka menganggap saya sebagai lelaki,” katanya.

Dalam temu bual itu juga, Sajat berkata dia kini lebih bebas dan boleh menjadi dirinya sendiri di negara itu.

“Saya rasa terkongkong di negara sendiri, di tempat saya dilahirkan sebab undang-undang menjenayahkan saya dan menganggap saya sebagai lelaki,” katanya.

Terdahulu, Sajat berkata dia mempunyai perancangan untuk membuka perniagaan di negara itu dan tidak akan kembali ke Malaysia semula.

Sumber : Rotikaya

caprut

Aku rasa pondan ni over la bercerita dia kena raba dgn pegawai agama. Aku thu ramai tunggang agama tp xde dia suke2 nk pgg tek ko. Kang tk pasal kena viral dgn ko

shiraloveyou

Kebebasan apa la yg ko nak sangat kat dunia yg sementara ni jat ooiii.....bawak2 la bertaubat....

tumpanglalu74

Lengkali pasang badan tu kalahkan pondan2 ney sume baru la hati tu bersih tak dengki tengok pondan..

Sabah kene bom nanti yang kat semenanjong pon habes cirit-birit tapi Sajat aman2 ja berwirid dalam telekong di Oz.  Kah2..

imanjannah

tak lama pun kita hidup di dunia ni, alam kubur, alam akhirat tu lebih lama

kelapaparut

bab tetek die kne ramas dgn pegawai jais tu iols yakin benar, byk la kite dgr cerite pegawai jabatan agama suke tangkap org sbb nak skodeng2

noor2

Jahat la pegawai tu kalau perlakuksn beliau mcm tu...

becir

kelapaparut replied at 21-10-2021 04:16 PM
bab tetek die kne ramas dgn pegawai jais tu iols yakin benar, byk la kite dgr cerite pegawai jabatan ...

Ntahnya I caya je dia kena molest ngan jantan pekerja jab agama..they are not sinless, skandal dlm opis pun Ada je ...

becir

kelapaparut replied at 21-10-2021 04:16 PM
bab tetek die kne ramas dgn pegawai jais tu iols yakin benar, byk la kite dgr cerite pegawai jabatan ...

Ntahnya I caya je dia kena molest ngan jantan pekerja jab agama..they are not sinless, skandal dlm opis pun Ada je ...

nolya

Sajat rasa bebas di negara orang, bebas juga menceritakan keburukan orang tanpa khuatir kena tangkap. Secara tak langsung akan tercalar nama baik M'sia terkait soal HAM dn lgbt. Ramai akan percayai cerita dia serta mengasehani dia. Dia bercerita kuat tentang alasan lari dari M'sia atas platform lgbt, tapi dia tak cerita kalau dia dikehendaki atas hukuman syariah dn mahkamah sivil.

Negara2 yg sokong lgbt tentu tak akan sokong M'sia dn layanan M'sia terhadap Sajat. HAM lebih gencar dipertahankan drp hak menjaga maruah agama yg terpakai di M'sia.

Firenzza

caprut replied at 21-10-2021 03:05 PM
Aku rasa pondan ni over la bercerita dia kena raba dgn pegawai agama. Aku thu ramai tunggang agama t ...

Pegang pun apa salahnya sejenis kan?

missus_meow

hal lgbt ni mmg disukai press di sana ...

c===8

Sapa yg penah jumpa penangkap2 maksiat jabatan agama ni tau je cemana perangai dorg.lg rendah pangkat lagi kerek

ifanonline

di malaysia memang tiada tempat utk LGBTQ...mana2 bangsa baik melayu, cina atau india nak jadi LGBTQ, sila berambus mcm sajat

lurve82

Mendonia abg sajat kiter…

bungarose

Ko masih hamba Allah jad
Ko nak lari maner dibumi Allah nih

Punat_button

Transgender Woman Flees Malaysia After Prison Threat for Wearing Hijab

The Islamic authorities want to imprison her for wearing female clothing at a religious event and threatened to put her in a rehabilitation camp where she could “return to the right path.”

A portrait of Nur Sajat at a hotel in Australia this month, taken during a video chat with the photographer. Faye Sakura for The New York Times

By Hannah Beech and Hadi Azmi
Oct. 20, 2021

In February 2018, on her birthday, Nur Sajat put on a demure hijab and attended a Muslim prayer session at a new building she was inaugurating near the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. Three years after that sartorial choice, the Malaysian authorities have charged her with “insulting Islam” and wearing female attire.

On Monday, Ms. Nur Sajat, a transgender entrepreneur and social media personality, announced that she had fled to Australia to escape the threat of prison in her home state, Selangor.

“When I received refuge in Australia, I felt protected to be my true self, to be free,” Ms. Nur Sajat said in an interview with The New York Times. “I felt trapped in my own country, where I was born, because of the laws there that criminalize me and consider me a man.”

Ms. Nur Sajat’s dilemma — having to flee home in order to be herself — broadly reflects a national division in Malaysia between more conservative Malays and a coalition of liberal Muslims and minority Chinese and Indians who stress the Southeast Asian nation’s multiethnic, multifaith heritage.

Malaysia is bound by a hybrid legal system when it comes to personal or family matters. Muslims, who make up more than half the population, must follow Shariah law. Non-Muslims are bound by civil law. While some of the stricter Shariah laws are rarely enforced, the governing coalition, which draws support from the nation’s Muslim Malay base, is tightening legislation targeting transgender and gay people.

“The government is serious about the issue of L.G.B.T. people in the country, as Malaysia is a country that adheres to the religion of Islam,” Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said last month, shortly after he was sworn in as Malaysia’s new leader. “Any individual who violates the law must face action. Nevertheless, at the same time, they need to be guided and be made aware so that they can return to the right path.”

Guiding Ms. Nur Sajat would mean, at the very least, placing her in a rehabilitation camp for transgender people, Islamic officials said. On Tuesday, Idris Ahmad, the minister for religious affairs in the prime minister’s department, offered such a camp as a more palatable option for Ms. Nur Sajat than imprisonment.

It is not clear why the charges against Ms. Nur Sajat were made three years after she had presided over the prayer ceremony while wearing female religious clothing. Ms. Nur Sajat, who has a large following on social media, said she had regularly conducted such events and donated part of her earnings to charity, as is the Islamic custom.


“When I received refuge in Australia, I felt protected to be my true self, to be free,” Ms. Nur Sajat said.

“I was born and raised as a Muslim person so I was taught to do things in an Islamic way,” she said. “I conducted a halal business.”

In January, Ms. Nur Sajat received a summons from the religious department of the state of Selangor, where her wellness and lifestyle business is based. It was the kind of missive that strikes fear in transgender people in Malaysia. With several friends and family, Ms. Nur Sajat went to meet the officials at the Islamic department, who said they had received public complaints about her.

While inside, Ms. Nur Sajat said that at least three men kicked her and pinned her down. They groped her breasts, she said. The same day, she was handcuffed, arrested and officially charged in a Shariah court. She was placed overnight in a male detention facility.

Ms. Nur Sajat’s mother, who witnessed the assault, confronted one officer, asking how pious Muslims could do something like that. He responded that Ms. Nur Sajat was a man so it was OK. (Her account of the assault was corroborated by an activist who spoke to her mother.)

“They think it is justified to touch my private parts and my breasts because they perceive me as a male person,” Ms. Nur Sajat said. “They didn’t treat me with any compassion or humanity.”

After the incident, Ms. Nur Sajat made a police complaint, and a few days later the authorities said that a religious department enforcement officer was called in to give a statement. Since then, no further action has been taken. The religious department refused to comment.

Panicked, Ms. Nur Sajat escaped in February to neighboring Thailand, where she was later convicted of illegal entry. That crime could have merited extradition to Malaysia, and the Malaysian authorities made it clear they wanted her back. But Ms. Nur Sajat quietly left Thailand this month and ended up in Australia, where other transgender Malaysians have been resettled through the United Nations refugee process.

“I’ve always been scapegoated to distract from larger issues, and my case has been sensationalized because of my social media presence,” Ms. Nur Sajat said.

The targeting of transgender people has intensified under the current governing coalition, which displaced an opposition force last year. A top religious official encouraged the nation’s Islamic authorities to arrest transgender people. In September, an Islamic council in the state of Perlis issued what amounted to a prohibition on transgender people entering mosques.


Ms. Nur Sajat, who runs a skin care, wellness and clothing business, has a large following on social media.

Through the middle of this year, more than 1,700 people were forced to attend a government-run “spiritual camp” meant to counter “unnatural sex,” according to government statistics.

Legislation in Malaysia targeting gay and transgender people is rooted not only in religious courts. British colonial-era prohibitions outlaw “carnal knowledge against the order of nature” for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Shariah courts have the power to order caning for Muslims engaging in same-sex conduct, but for years the punishment was not meted out. Then, in 2018, two women were subjected to the brutal form of corporal punishment for having sex in the conservative state of Terengganu. A year later, five men were sentenced to caning in Selangor for the same offense, a ruling that was partly overturned by a higher court this year.

Ms. Nur Sajat released a video on social media earlier this year questioning whether she should give up her faith. She later deleted the video and said in the interview with The Times that she was in an anxious state because of the assault by religious department officials. Renouncing Islam can be considered a crime in Malaysia.

“Islam is a holy religion,” Ms. Nur Sajat said. “It is a personal matter, and I have a right to privacy.”

Mr. Idris, the religious affairs minister, said last month that should Ms. Nur Sajat “plead guilty” and “return to a natural self,” there would be “no problem.” He referred to Ms. Nur Sajat by the full name she was given at birth.

“We do not seek to punish, we are more toward educating,” Mr. Idris added.

Ms. Nur Sajat runs a skin care, wellness and clothing business, and her appearance on a reality TV show placed her in the firmament of Malaysia’s social influencers. Last year, she went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and documented the trip on Instagram, courting controversy from some Malaysian clerics. One official deemed that she had “marred Islam” by wearing female prayer attire.


Ms. Nur Sajat this month from her hotel in Australia. She misses home but does not see a way to return as long as laws targeting gay and transgender people continue to be enforced. Faye Sakura for The New York Times

In 2019, the religious authorities tried to make Ms. Nur Sajat undergo physical tests to determine her gender. She refused.

“She has no protection in Malaysia and the state is hellbent in not only prosecuting her but also using this event to impose wider restrictions against all L.G.B.T.Q. persons,” said Thilaga Sulathireh, a co-founder of Justice for Sisters, a transgender advocacy group in Malaysia.

Other transgender Malaysians said they were worried about the zeal with which the nation’s religious authority, which recently received a surge of funding, had pursued Ms. Nur Sajat.

“I myself, when the time comes, will leave because I don’t want to remain in a society like this,” said Shika Corona, a transgender musician.

From coronavirus quarantine in Australia, Ms. Nur Sajat said she was forced to abandon a successful business in “a blink of an eye.” She misses home but does not see a way to return as long as laws targeting gay and transgender people continue to be enforced.

“I was trapped and cornered in Malaysia because of the Shariah system,” she said. “My very being, my existence, was being questioned. But I am very firm in my identity as a woman. This is who I am.”


Hannah Beech has been the Southeast Asia bureau chief since 2017, based in Bangkok. Before joining The Times, she reported for Time magazine for 20 years from bases in Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok and Hong Kong. @hkbeech

Punat_button

nolya replied at 21-10-2021 04:50 PM
Sajat rasa bebas di negara orang, bebas juga menceritakan keburukan orang tanpa khuatir kena tangkap ...

memang malaysia anti LGBT kan?
ngaku ja la di persada dunia malu apa bossku

nolya

Punat_button replied at 21-10-2021 06:19 PM
memang malaysia anti LGBT kan?
ngaku ja la di persada dunia malu apa bossku

Ini bukan soal malu.  M'sia sbg sebuah negara yg berprinsip Islam, understood laa kan tak akan mengiktiraf gaya hidup lgbt. Itu yg seharusnya dihormati prinsip M'sia di mata dunia luar.

nolya

Punat_button replied at 21-10-2021 06:11 PM
Transgender Woman Flees Malaysia After Prison Threat for Wearing Hijab

The Islamic authorities want ...

One thing, Sajat tak pernah tanya ke kenapa dia saja yg diperlakukan begitu sedangkan bencong2/pondan2 yg lain, aman je tinggal di M'sia. Ape istimewanya dia dgn pondan2 lain shnga menjadi orang buruan?