On December 30, after a 2 year legal battle, Malaysia's high court struck down a government ban on Christians using the word "Allah" to describe God in the Malay language section of their newspapers. The ruling also applied to other applications as well. This includes Malay translations of the Bible -10,000 of which were recently siezed by the government for also using the word "Allah" for God. The reaction from the Muslim majority was anger and as of Monday, January 11th, nine churches have been burned wholly or partially. Christians make up only around 9% of the Malaysian population. Muslims make up just over 60% with the remainder being mostly Buddhist.
As in many other Muslim majority population countries, non-Muslims do not have the same rights and privileges that Muslims have. That, until now, has included who can use what word for "God" in the Malay language. The government of Prime Minister Najib Razak has been promoting a "One Malaysia" slogan since his April election in hopes of advancing ethnic unity but made no move to change religiously-inspired restrictions on freedom of speech. The Malaysian Home Ministry is instead deciding on whether or not to appeal the high court's decision. The controversy over who can use the word "Allah" is not an issue in all of the Muslim world though. It's not a problem in Egypt, Syria or the world's largest Muslim population country, Indonesia.
Photo Credit:
1) Rev. Fr. Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Roman Catholic Church’s weekly Malaysian publication The Herald (which brought the lawsuit), triumphantly holding up a Bible after the court's decision (AP photo/Lai Seng Sin).
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Comments
It would take the minority muslim community in America where they have so much religious freedom to plead with the muslim majority Govt of malaysia.
Taking there cues from Christianity- burn each other its more fun!
Nice article sir!
In Malaysia we have 100 of universities called UITM exclusively for Malays, 100 of Malays owned GLC companies that only employed a Malay Muslim, you hardly fine this in any countries around the world. The rich non-Malays many have migrated to elsewhere and the poor non-Malays are still suffering in silence with the government atrocities. If you people happen to come to south east asia, please visit Malaysia because we are truly racist.
The Muslim in Malaysia are brainwashed by UMNO to be like Taliban , UMNO government sow hatred between multiracial population deliberately so that the Muslim live separate from the other races, in mosque throughout the country UMNO government employed imam(leader of mosque) that strictly follow UMNO style fanatic Islamic teaching, they called the non-Malays as infidel belong to the hell, and the Muslim must not follow their way of living, Muslim must wear different clothes ,eat different food, Muslim must not mix with this non-Muslim (infidel), this has caused hatred among Muslim towards non-Muslim through this the government deliberately create intense polarization, the people living without any contact with each others, the Chinese, Indian and Malays living in the same housing area are seldom socialize with each other because of feeling of prejudice created by the government ,1 week back religious clash happen where this fanatics Muslim burn 8 churches and many believe it was spon
sponsored by the government . So when each election come the dominate Malays Muslim will vote the for UMNO dominat party within the national alliance (Barisan Nasional) always won in every five year and the Malay UMNO government will only take care of the Malays Muslim with a lot of special rights and race superiority policies, they have a set on readily available laws like ISA , OSA and seditious act to control and suppress the other races from complaining their grievances. Since independent the Malay Muslim government implemented NEP racist policy where all development plans are exclusively for Malay race. Under the NEP we in Malaysia have 2 citizenship 1st class for the Malay Muslim and 3rd class for non-Muslim, all government form whether it is job application form or any form we need to mention our citizenship , so that they can filter you out from civil service, university , and GLCs (Malay company only employed Malays Muslim) . Under this NEP lasting for 50 years the governmen
has deliberately created a underclass poor Indian at makes 8 % of the 28 million population ,they are weak economically and politically, this downtrodden Indian deliberately excluded and neglected to be out the estate( rubber plantation) thrown out into quarters area in urban and their living condition are like those African living in Somalia, many Indian teenagers has become thieves and involved in crime because of their poverty poor living standard, often this teenage are shoot to kill like street dogs by the police. When this people raised and demonstrated in 2007, the government catches the leaders and jail them without trial for 2 years in ISA and split the group into pieces. In Malaysia we have 100 of universities called UITM exclusively for Malays, 100 of Malays owned GLC companies that only employed a Malay Muslim, you hardly fine this in any countries around the world. The rich non-Malays many have migrated to elsewhere and the poor non-Malays are still suffering in silence w
Vip3r, I prefer commenters do not call other commenters names. I tend to delete grossly ad hominem attacks. Instead of calling Anak an idiot, try presenting a rational argument showing where and why he's wrong. If you can do that, you'll gain respect. If you can't, well, you can always sink back to ad hominem attacks.
God knows... He keep record on who doing good and evil... Always...
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