Court in Malaysia refuses to let Christians use the word "Allah" for God

(Vatican Radio) The Federal Court of Malaysia, the country’s highest court, on Monday upheld a government ban forbidding non-Muslims from using "Allah'' to refer to God. 

The suit was brought by the Catholic newspaper “Herald” to use the word which means God in the Malay language.  The government demands Christians instead use the word for “Lord” when referring to God.

“[The Federal Court] is where everything ends,” said Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of Herald. “That is why some people will say ‘the case ends here’. But there is a provision to have it be reviewed, and that is what we are going to explore once we get the written judgment of the judges. So there is possibility they could review the judgment of the judges.”

Listen to the interview by Charles Collins with Father Lawrence Andrew:

Father Andrew told Vatican Radio the case is a sign of growing intolerance for the country’s non-Muslim minority.

“This seems to be so, not just in Malaysia,” he said.  “There are signs of it in Indonesia, and as you know very well Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.”

He said the Christian community has been suffering worse treatment in the decades since independence.

“We have been enduring the pain of this situation of … being marginalized in some ways for a long time,” Father Andrew said.  “We have lost all our schools; it’s difficult to build churches; and now it’s difficult to import books,…or any material, which contain the word Allah.”