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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2015
After the marriage, there was a period of nearly four months during which the issues remained in suspense. Far from allowing the dust to settle, this interval saw a hardening of extreme attitudes and an inflation of controversy.
Within nine days of the wedding, the London Daily Express wrote in an editorial of “two hundred people of Bergen-op-Zoom in Holland [who] challenge the justice of Britain in the name of all parents.” Describing Che Aminah as a “nurse”, they went on:
Could this father and mother have been wrong in asking that (Maria) should be restored to them? It seems that by the laws of a British dependency (they) could be denied the custody of their 13-year old daughter. Yet this is what has happened; worse, in fact. Within a few days of Singapore's Court of Appeal decision, little Maria was married to a Muslim.
This extravagance is quoted to illustrate the worldwide interest in the case and the misunderstanding, chauvinism and intolerance which suffused it.
In the same week, Majlis, a Malay newspaper in Kuala Lumpur, in a leader wrote that the case of Maria had become a religious and national matter and (was) no longer a case between Che Aminah and Maria's parents. Other Malay newspapers, Utusan Melayu in Singapore and Warta Negara in Penang, argued editorially that the marriage should not be interfered with.
Maria and Mansoor received letters from Muslim organizations in Pakistan promising financial and other help. One said that the entire Muslim population in Pakistan would support the couple to fight the case with the Dutch Government. Another declared “any further move by the Dutch Government to separate (Maria) from her husband would be an open challenge to the Muslim world.” Pledges of aid came also from Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
In Malaya, Malay newspapers began to collect funds for passing on to the “legal defence fund” set up by Mr. Majid's Muslim Welfare Association. The Association obtained police permission to collect door-to-door subscriptions which started on 12 September; originally the permit ran until the end of December but it was withdrawn on 30 September.
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