Political & judicial authority

Do Malaysians who no longer identify as Muslims have any recourse beyond subjecting themselves to the Shariah system that only recognises adherents of Islam?

With the recent furore over the disruptions of a Taoist funeral and a Hindu wedding by state religious authorities claiming that Muslims were involved, renewed attention has been focused on non―Muslims wishing to dispute official records of their Muslim identity. Read more »

An Indian woman whose Hindu wedding was recently disrupted by Selangor Islamic officials insisting she is Muslim despite her efforts to leave Islam has again put the spotlight on the difficulties in exiting the religion.

Like many Malaysians who dispute their official identities as Muslims, she was told to go to the Shariah courts in order to remove the status from her official documents. Read more »

Like all Heads of Churches – and for that matter, like most, if not all Christians – I am very disappointed by and deeply concerned over the implications of the Federal Court’s decision not to grant leave to the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur to bring the “Herald case” (the ban of the use of the term “Allah” by the Herald) to the Federal Court.

Nonetheless, there is the consolation that the decision was not unanimous. Three of the seven judges on the panel gave a dissenting decision. Read more »

Far from putting the issue to rest, the Federal Court 4-3 majority judgment last Monday favouring the government over the Herald case now seems to be stirring the hornet's nest in the Jill Ireland case at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur yesterday morning.

Senior counsel Philip Koh, who is keeping a watching brief for the Majlis or council of non-Muslims religions, pointed the case is not confined to Christians as Sikhs and others also use the word 'Allah' to refer to God in their Holy Scriptures. Read more »

The Government’s refusal to allow Christians to use the word ‘Allah’ presents a number of challenges.

The dispute over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims first erupted in 2008 when the Home Ministry banned the Herald, the Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia’s weekly newspaper from using it in its Malay-language section.

Seven years on – after numerous court rulings, rhetoric and demonstrations, it remains a painfully divisive issue. In 2013, the Court of Appeal ruled that the use of the word was not an integral part of the Christian faith. Read more »

Former Chief Justice of Malaysia has said he did not want to join the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) as he feared being used by certain parties, who wanted to cast aside Malay rights and the position of Islam in the country.

Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad said he had made up his mind not to join the NUCC even before its composition was unveiled. Read more »

A lawyer, representing a Sarawakian Christian challenging the home ministry's seizure of her religious compact discs for containing the word "Allah", has questioned the ministry's justification that the term was exclusive to Islam and Muslims.

Nizam Bashir told the High Court today that an officer from the ministry had clearly acted on an incorrect basis of fact.

Nizam quoted from affidavits of experts submitted in the case, stressing that the Quran contains references to Christians and Jews using the word “Allah” as a reference to God in affirmative and in encouraging terms. Read more »

The national interfaith council has weighed in on the debate on whether Malaysia is a secular state and if hudud should be implemented in the country, pointing to historical evidence and provisions in the Constitution which dispel any doubts that the nation’s founding fathers had intended the nation to be a secular, not an Islamic state.

Citing historical documents such as the Alliance Memorandum submitted to the Reid Commission in 1956 and the white paper issued by the British government in June 1957, the council pointed out there was no historical document to contradict the fact that Malaysia was intended to be a secular state. Read more »

Chief Minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Adenan Satem told Christians here there was no law in Sarawak that prevents them from using the term ‘Allah’ to refer to God.

“There is no law in Sarawak that says you cannot use the word ‘Allah’, and I will not permit such a law in Sarawak as long as I am the Chief Minister,” he said during a meeting with the people at the Catholic Centre here yesterday. Read more »