KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — The publisher of a Malaysian Catholic newspaper has sought a court order to use the word Allah, the editor said Friday after the Muslim majority country banned its Malay-language section.
"We are in the view that we have the right to use the word Allah, (a right) which ... is now sought to be curtailed," Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of The Herald, told AFP.
Church leaders had said they used the word Allah when delivering sermons in Malay or write in the Malay language section of the 28-page weekly newspaper.
Religion and language are sensitive issues in multiracial Malaysia, which experienced deadly race riots in 1969.
Malaysian commentators have sounded alarm over the growing "Islamisation" of the country and the increasing polarisation of the three main ethnic communities, which mix much less than in the past.
Andrew said the legal challenge was filed in a Malaysian High Court on December 5 following orders from the government not to use the word Allah, which Muslims use to describe God.
The internal security ministry later ordered a ban on articles in The Herald that were written in Malay.
Mohamad Johari Baharum, a junior security minister, had said the word Allah should only be used in the context of Islam and not any other religion, to avoid confusion.
"Only Muslims can use the word Allah. The word Allah is published by the Catholics. That is not right," he was quoted as saying by online newspaper Malaysiakini recently.
Lawrence also said the government had yet to renew the annual printing licence for the newspaper, which expires on Monday and without which it cannot be published.
"We made an application for renewal in June. I think there is a bureaucratic mishap," he said.
The tabloid Herald is circulated among the country's 850,000 Catholics with articles written in English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay.
About 60 percent of the nation's 27 million people are ethnic Malay Muslims, while the rest are mostly Buddhist, Hindu or Christian Chinese and Indians.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
