Changing Religion in Malaysia due to Hospital Mixed Up. Possible?

This is a sensitive issue in Malaysia. In Malaysia, it is practically illegal for Muslims to renounce their religion and convert to other faith. This case is interesting because this man, now a Muslim, actually belongs to a Buddhist Chinese family, who were victims of a hospital error, who switched the Malay baby with a Chinese baby. This is another hot potato that can elevate religious tensions.

Hospital switched Malay babies

KUALA LAMPUR, Malaysia, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- A Malaysian couple, always convinced the baby they were given at the hospital was not theirs, were reunited with their biological son after 30 years.

The BBC reported Saturday the couple was now considering legal action against the hospital in southern Malaysia for sending them home with the wrong baby and subjecting them to scurrilous talk among their neighbors because he didn't resemble his parents.

The family was actually reunited by sheer coincidence eight years ago when one of the Teo family siblings spotted the prodigal son working at a shopping mall and thought he was the spitting image of her father.

It is just now that the family is going public with the information because the man wishes to take a Chinese name and renounce Islam, the religion of the Muslim family that he was wrongly given to in 1978, the report said.

Meanwhile, the child given to the Teo family at the hospital left home at the tender age of 13 in 1991 because they said he always felt like he did not belong in the family.

Asia1 has another version of this: "Malaysian switched at birth wants to switch religion"