Kuala Lumpur: court adjourns trial on the disputed use of the word Allah
Kuala Lumpur, March 6, 2014: Hundreds of Muslims demonstrated outside the Federal
Court in Kuala Lumpur, where the first session in the appeal case filed by Catholics
was heard on Wenesday on whether to ban the use of the word Allah for the Christian
God.
A panel of seven judges - something unique in the history of Malaysia
for a civil case - heard the arguments from both parties, and adjourned the case to
a ‘later date’. At present, it is not possible to know whether the court will hear
the Catholic petition for a retrial, or uphold the lower court's decision of banning
the use of Allah. The lawyer representing the Catholic case, Cyrus Das, said he was
‘quite confident’ because the issue is ‘of great public importance’ and the Church
has a new opportunity to plead its case in court.
In an attempt to put pressure
on judges examining the case, at least 500 people brandished placards outside the
courthouse, shouting slogans like 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) and 'Allah cannot
be used by outsiders or Christians'.
The Catholic Church filed a case against
the appeal court whose ruling in October last year coincided with government wishes
and banned non-Muslims from using the word Allah so as ‘not to cause confusion.’ The
ban singles out the Catholic weekly Herald.
For Church leaders (and activist
movements), the reason given is preposterous, a blatant violation of religious freedom
in a multi-cultural nation that, for some time, has experienced rising sectarian tensions.
Herald
editor Fr Andrew Lawrence said that in conjunction with Ash Wednesday, the first day
of Lent, Christians across the country have been praying and fasting "for a favourable
verdict." At the same time, a small group of people rallied outside the Bangsar
shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur, handing out flowers and balloons to express solidarity
with Christians. The activists held up banners, saying that ‘God is one’, ‘We are
brothers and sisters’ and ‘We all answer to Allah.’
The group included Marina
Mahathir, an activist and daughter of Malaysian's fourth prime minister Mahathir bin
Mohamad. Calling for peace and harmony, she said, "We are tired of all this ugliness
and this climate of hate".
Overturning a 2009 court decision, an appeal court
last October ordered the Herald to stop using the word Allah for the Christian God.
Paper editor Fr Lawrence Andrew filed an appeal to defend the rights of the minority,
whilst continuing to promote harmony and peaceful coexistence among the country's
various groups. He repeatedly stressed that the issue is not religious, but a simple
matter of law. However, this did not stop attacks and violence against Christians,
including the desecration of some tombstones in a cemetery and Molotov cocktails thrown
at a church.
In Malaysia, a nation of more than 28 million people, mostly Muslims
(60 per cent), Christians are the third largest religious group (after Buddhists)
with more than 2.6 million members. A Latin-Malay dictionary published 400 years ago
shows that the word Allah was already in use to describe the Biblical God in the local
language.