Most of you must have already known that the muslims in malaysia especially the malays are very sensitive about islamic issue especially about conversion to other faith.

I would like to share with you the Natrah's riots that happened during the 1960s...



for full story please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_H...#Maria_Hertogh

















her real mother on the left

Stay at the convent
When policewomen came to take Maria away, she wept and clung to Aminah and Mansoor. Aminah fainted on the spot and a doctor standing by had to attend to her. Mansoor advised Maria to concede for the time being and promised that he and others would carry on the legal fight. Thus Maria allowed herself to be brought away into a car. Outside, the police, including a Gurkha contingent, held back a crowd of several hundred.

The car delivered Maria to the Roman Catholic Convent of the Good Shepherd in Thomson Road. Mrs. Hertogh stayed at another address for a few days, from where she visited Maria daily, before moving in to the convent herself. According to an official of the Netherlands Consulate-General, such arrange was because of "greater convenience" while the stay of execution pending appeal was in effect. But it proved to be the falsest step, the spark that lit the fuse of the subsequent riots.

First and foremost, the press was not barred from entering the convent grounds. Nor were they restricted in any way in their approach to the incident, which had been nothing shy of sensational. On 5 December, the Singapore Standard published on its front page a photograph of Maria standing holding hands with the Reverend Mother. There were several more pictures on page 2, under the headline: Bertha knelt before Virgin Mary Statue. The Malay press retorted. The Utusan Melayu published on 7 December three photographs of Maria weeping and being comforted by a nun, as well as articles about Maria's "lonely and miserable" life in the convent.

These pictures, whether presenting Maria as happy or sad, mostly showed Maria surrounded by symbols of Christian faith. The Muslims, who looked upon Maria as one of their own, were deeply offended by such pictures, not to mention the sensational reports, some of which explicitly labelled the case as a religious issue between Islam and Christianity.

On 9 December, an organization calling itself the Nadra Action Committee was formally constituted under the leadership of Karim Ghani, a Muslim political activist from Rangoon. This extreme organization solicited support among local Muslims by distributing free copies of its newspaper, the Dawn (not the Dawn, an English paper published in Pakistan). Karim Ghani had also made an open speech at the Sultan Mosque on 8 December in which he mentioned jihad as a final resort.

In the light of these potent signs of a great disturbance, the Criminal Investigation Department sent a memo to the Colonial Secretary suggesting moving Maria back to York Hill to avoid further inciting Muslim anger. The Secretary did not agree on grounds that he had received no such representations from Muslim leaders, nor did he have the authority to remove Maria without further court orders - weak excuses since Maria could be relocated with her mother's consent. Nonetheless, it could never be said if moving Maria out of the convent at such a late stage could have averted the riots.


Crowds were enraged by the Court's rejection of the appeal.

The riots
The appeal hearing opened on 11 December. Maria stayed at the convent and did not attend. Since early morning, crowds carrying banners and flags with star and crescent symbols began to gather around the Supreme Court. By noon, when the hearing eventually began, the restive crowd had grown to 2,000 to 3,000 in number. Unbelievably, the court threw out the appeal within five minutes. The brevity of the hearing convinced the gathering that the colonial legal system was biased against Muslims. The riots erupted.

The mob (largely consisted of Malay or Indonesian Muslims but local Chinese gangs were also reported to have joined in) moved out to attack any Europeans and even Eurasians in sight. They overturned cars and burnt them. The police force, its lower ranks largely consisted of Malays who sympathized with the rioters' cause, were ineffective in quelling the riots. By nightfall the riots had spread to even the more remote parts of the island. Help from the British military was enlisted only at around 6:45 PM. Major-General Dunlop promptly deployed two Internal Security Battalions while calling in further reinforcements from Malaya. Meanwhile, various Muslim leaders appealed over the radio for the riots to cease.

Reinforcements arrived early on 12 December, but riotous incidents continued on that day. The troops and police only managed to regain control of the situation by noon on 13 December. In total, 18 people were killed, among whom were seven Europeans or Eurasians, two police officers, and nine rioters shot by the police or military, 173 were injured, many of them seriously, 119 vehicles were damaged, and at least two buildings were set on fire. Subsequently, two weeks of 24-hour curfew were imposed, and it was a long time before complete law and order was re-established.


Epilogue
On the night the riots broke out, Maria Hertogh was moved out of the convent, where the rioters tried twice to march on and were only kept back by the police. Plans were made at York Hill to receive her but she was instead sent to Saint John's Island, an offshore island 4 miles south of the main island of Singapore. The next day, Maria and Adeline Hertogh departed for the Netherlands by aeroplane. After landing in Schipol Airport, they quickly proceeded to the Hertogh home on the outskirts of Bergen op Zoom.

At first, Maria could only talk to her mother, the only one in the family who understood Malay. She demanded rice with every meal, resenting the western diet. She continued to say her Muslim prayers five times a day. In addition, a policeman in plain clothes was assigned to escort her whenever she left the house, for fear of possible kidnappers who might take her back to Singapore, following reported sighting of "oriental strangers" around town. The house was also placed under surveillance.

Slowly, Maria began to adjust to her new environment. A nun came to the house daily to teach her Dutch until she was proficient enough to attend a local convent school. She also began to attend Mass with her family. Back in Singapore, Aminah and Mansoor had apparently given up hope of retrieving Maria after leave to appeal to the Privy Council was not granted. Earlier interest of the several Muslim groups involved had also gradually died down.

On 20 April 1956, Maria was married to Johan Gerardus Wolkefeld, a 21-year-old Dutch Catholic. On 15 February 1957, she gave birth to a son, the first child of thirteen. However, Maria did not seem to be content. As she told De Telegraaf, she often had rows with her mother, who lived near by. She also said she still longed for her Malayan homeland. Johan and Mansoor began corresponding. In letters both expressed wish for Maria to travel to Malaya to visit the aged Aminah, but such trip was never made due primarily to financial difficulties. Aminah died in 1976.

The life story of Maria took another dramatic turn on 16 August of the same year, when Maria found herself on trial in a Dutch court charged with plotting to murder her husband. She admitted in court that she had been thinking about leaving her husband but was afraid to start divorce proceedings in case she lost custody of her children. She came into contact with two regular customers at her husband's cafe bar. The trio bought a revolver and recruited a fourth accomplice to carry out the actual murder. However, the latest member got cold feet and gossiped about the murder plan. The police quickly learnt of it and arrested all four conspirators.

In her defence, Maria's lawyers brought up her background, which the court acknowledged. With this in mind, and because the plot was never executed and there was no proof that she offered any inducement to the other three, the three-men bench acquitted Maria. Meanwhile, Maria had also filed for divorce on the grounds of the irreparable breakdown of her marriage.

I have a feeling that this could happen again.... in the near future.

I know it's hard to accept apostasy among the Malays. But Malays MUST be civilized... no riots.

But worst of worst is the 13th May tragedy...

the story above really makes me cry...it is a very sad story...

What happened to her now? As if she's not happy living in Holland.

Quite a story. I am not sure myself what happened to her, but she went back to Malaysia in 1999 for a Dutch TV-documentary on the problems and the resulting riots. I have not seen the documentary, so I cannot comment. She still lives in Holland however.

These issues around conversion are really a major potential source of conflict and tension between the Muslim and Christian world. I don't think Christians will ever accept the idea that Muslims are not allowed to leave their faith.

Originally Posted by KAding

Quite a story. I am not sure myself what happened to her, but she went back to Malaysia in 1999 for a Dutch TV-documentary on the problems and the resulting riots. I have not seen the documentary, so I cannot comment. She still lives in Holland however.

These issues around conversion are really a major potential source of conflict and tension between the Muslim and Christian world. I don't think Christians will ever accept the idea that Muslims are not allowed to leave their faith.

I wonder why suddenly syilla raised this issue? It's been a while...

She died of leukaemia on 08.07.2009

Maria Hertogh dies

Fri, Jul 10, 2009
The Straits Times

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: The young Dutch girl at the centre of a highly publicised custody battle that sparked the 1950 Maria Hertogh riots has died, Bernama reported yesterday.

Ms Hertogh died of leukaemia in Huijbergen, the Netherlands, on Wednesday. She was 72.

In 1950, when the High Court in Singapore awarded custody of the 13-year-old girl back to her biological Catholic Dutch parents, the ruling ignited three days of riots.

http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne...10-153879.html

Maria Hertogh Part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q51da...eature=related

Maria Hertogh Part II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWlnU...eature=related

I think I can understand why sister Syilla raised the issue of Natrah. She had lived her happy life here in Malaya but the British officer had dragged her into a mess. She can't live like a girl after she returned home in Holland, while when she lived with her adopted mother, she was treated with care. Her mother Adelaine Louis didn't really care about her, only her father Petrus care but he's a man. A mother is the one who really took care about the children at home. I had read her biography written Haja Ali Maideen. Quite sad, it's a family problem but I can see that the root of the problem is from the British Officer. No matter what faith she's now, I just hope she rest in peace. It's not even her choice to die as a Catholic but she's alone in a country populated by majority non-Muslims and her family too is not Muslim.

I think that she died as a non-religious person...

		The youngest of her 10 children, Silvija Wolkenfelt, said there would be no burial as it was Hertogh's last wish to donate her body for research. http://nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/a...cle/index_html

i read in the newspaper yesterday...

She lived feeling guilty for all the killings that has happened just because of her problem

and the sweetest memory that she had was when she was a Muslim kid in Malaya...