Woman jailed for 'worshipping tea pot'-THIS IS THE ODDEST STORY I HAVE PUBLISHED TO DATE

A sharia court in Malaysia jailed a woman for joining a "tea-pot worshipping" cult. Kamariah Ali, a 57 year old former teacher, was arrested in 2005 when the government of the Muslim majority country demolished the two storey high sacred tea pot and other infrastructure of the "heretical" Sky Kingdom cult. For the eccentric sect, which emphasised ecumenical dialogue between religions, the tea pot symbolized the purity of water and "love pouring from heaven". But in Malaysia, despite constitutional guarantees of freedom of worship, born Muslims such as Mrs Ali are forbidden from converting to other religions. Passing sentence, the Sharia judge Mohammed Abdullah said: "The court is not convinced that the accused has repented and is willing to abandon any teachings contrary to Islam. I pray God will open the doors of your heart, Kamariah." Mrs Ali has already been jailed once for apostasy, for 20 months in 1992. "This has to stop. They can’t be sending her again and again to prison for this," her lawyer, Sa'adiah Din, told reporters. "She informed the court that she is not a Muslim. She doesn't come under Sharia court anymore." The case underlines the dissatisfaction of non-Muslim Malaysians, who make up just under half the population, ahead of the country’s most contentious election in a generation this Saturday. Yet analysts say gerrymandering, vote buying, press censorship and a virtual ban on opposition rallies make the government unbeatable. Last year 31,000 people over 100 years old were found on the electoral register. They were alleged "phantom voters", who have helped keep the ruling coalition in power since independence 50 years ago. The population is divided between Hindus of Indian origin, Christian and Buddhist ethnic Chinese and a narrow majority of ethnic Malays who are legally deemed Muslim by birth and whose interests the government is sworn to protect. Last autumn a protest by Hindus, angered by perceived discrimination such as the demolition of temples, was broken up with tear gas and water canon. The community has long standing grievances. In one emotional case, the first Malaysian to climb Mt Everest -Maniam Moorthy- was declared a Muslim after his death and given a Muslim burial, to the consternation of his original Hindu community. Last week Christian churches made a rare political intervention, urging voters to choose candidates who support freedom of worship. Christians have suffered several seizures of bible shipments by customs authorities in recent months. The rise of sharia law in parallel to the civil code has alarmed both minority faiths, and spawned several controversial judgements in cases of religious conversion and interfaith marriage. The Malaysian government has been implicated in several corruption scandals in recent months and is blamed for a struggling economy. Analysts say the politicisation of religion in the country is a complex phenomenon but cite among its causes the government's need to draw dissatisfied Muslim voters away from the relatively radical Islamic opposition.(my view)-LOL come on how is worshipping a tea pot more crazy then worshipping your fake and over fictionalized "prophet"(and i use that term as BULLSHIT as the way brown people use slavery as an excuse or the term racist)Mohammed