1. Bernama com (http://www.herald.com)
(1) Roman Catholic Church Withdraws Application For Judicial Review, 26 June 2009
KUALA LUMPUR, June 26 (Bernama) -- The Roman Catholic Church today withdrew its 2008 application for a judicial review over the usage of the word "Allah" in its weekly publication.
High Court judge Lau Bee Lan struck out the application in chambers.
Counsel S.Selvarajah for the Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam, informed the media that the church withdrew the application as the permit for the Herald publication for the period Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2008, had expired.
As such, the judicial review sought in 2008 had become academic.
On May 5 last year, Pakiam, as publisher of The Herald, named the Home Ministry and Government of Malaysia as respondents in his action for a declaration that the decision of the respondents dated Feb 12, 2008, prohibiting him from using the word "Allah" in the "Herald-The Catholic Weekly" is illegal.
He also sought a declaration that he is entitled to use the word "Allah" and that the word "Allah" is not exclusive to the religion of Islam.
Selvarajah said Pakiam's fresh application for judicial review which was filed on Feb 16 this year, would be heard on July 7.
(2) Herald: Religious Councils' Applications To Be Heard On July 17, 7 July 2009
KUALA LUMPUR, July 7 (Bernama) -- The High Court here today fixed July 17 to hear the applications by nine religious councils to intervene in the Roman Catholic church's fresh application for a judicial review over the usage of the word "Allah" in its weekly publication.
Justice Lau Bee Lan also set the same date in chambers for mention of the judicial review application, which was to have been heard today.
The intervernors were seven state religious councils from Perak, Terengganu, Penang, Selangor, Kedah, Johor and Melaka, the Malaysian Gurdwaras Council and the Malaysia Chinese Muslim Association.
On Feb 16, the titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam, filed a fresh application for a judicial review after the 2008 judicial review application had become academic as the permit for the Herald publication for the period Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2008, had expired.
In the application, Pakiam, as publisher of The Herald, named the Home Ministry and Government of Malaysia as respondents in his action for a declaration that the decision of the respondents dated Jan 7, 2009, prohibiting him from using the word "Allah" in the "Herald-The Catholic Weekly" is illegal.
He also sought a declaration that he is entitled to use the word "Allah" and that the word "Allah" is not exclusive to the religion of Islam.
2.Anilnetto.com (http://anilnetto.com)
Groups want to be co-respondents in Herald case,7 July 2009
The case involving the Catholic Herald weekly’s usage of the term “Allah” was heard in chambers today.
A string of ‘interveners’ - mostly state Islamic religious councils and the Malaysian Gurdwara Council - filed their applications to be co-respondents in the case. The hearing date is 17 July.
In the meantime, the Herald is restrained from using the term Allah.
3. Berita Harian (http://www.bharian.com.my)
Herald: Permohonan majlis agama didengar 17 Julai, 7 Julai 2009/14 Rejab 1430
KUALA LUMPUR: Mahkamah Tinggi di sini, hari ini menetapkan 17 Julai ini untuk mendengar permohonan sembilan majlis agama bagi mencela dalam permohonan baru Gereja Roman Katholik untuk semakan kehakiman mengenai penggunaan perkataan “Allah” dalam penerbitan mingguannya.
Hakim Lau Bee Lan, turut menetapkan tarikh sama dalam kamar bagi sebutan permohonan semakan kehakiman, yang dijadual didengar hari ini.
Pihak pencela ialah tujuh majlis agama Islam negeri dari Perak, Terengganu, Pulau Pinang, Selangor, Kedah, Johor dan Melaka manakala dua lain ialah Majlis Gurdwara Malaysia dan Persatuan Cina Muslim Malaysia.
4. Compass direct News (http://compassdirect.org)
MALAYSIA: COURT SET TO RULE ON USE OF ‘ALLAH’ AMONG NON-MUSLIMS, 6 July 2009
Judges to determine whether Malaysians of other faiths can use the Arabic word.
MUMBAI, India, July 6 (Compass direct News) – With the Kuala Lumpur High Court in Malaysia scheduled to determine the legality of the word “Allah” in non-Muslim literature tomorrow, what is at stake goes beyond the sanctioned name for God among non-Muslims in the majority-Muslim nation.
Such a limit on free speech in Malaysia is especially biting for Muslim converts to Christianity; already the Malaysian government does not recognize their conversions and marriages and still considers their offspring to be legally Muslim. With non-Muslims increasingly feeling the sting of discrimination and Muslim elites feeling a need to assert a national Islamic identity, the skirmish over “Allah” is clearly part of a greater cultural war.
Malaysian authorities and Malaysia’s Roman Catholic Church have continued to lock horns over use of the word “Allah” in the Malay-language edition of the Herald, the church’s newspaper, as they await the ruling. The newspaper had been allowed to use the term until a final court decision, but the Kuala Lumpur High Court on May 30 overturned that brief reprieve.
The Catholic newspaper has provided a panoply of historical uses of “Allah” among Christians in Malaysia. The Rev. Lawrence Andrew, editor of the Herald, quotes examples from a Malay-Latin dictionary dated 1631, and the Dutch-Malay Dictionary of 1650 lists “Allah” as the vernacular translation for God.
“This is testified by the fact that we have a Malay-Latin Dictionary printed in 1631, in which the word ‘Allah’ is cited,” Andrew said. “To have a word in a dictionary means that that particular word has already been in use in the community prior to the dictionary. The word for ‘God’ in Latin is ‘Deus’ and in Malay, it is ‘Allah.’ Upon the arrival of the Dutch…a Dutch-Malay Dictionary was produced in 1650 where the word for ‘God’ in Dutch was ‘Godt,’ and in Malay, ‘Allah.’"
According to church sources, the Malay term for “God,” Tuhan, came into vogue only after deadly May 13, 1969 communal riots as part of a national unity campaign.
Andrew noted that “Allah” is an Arabic term derived from the same roots as the Hebrew Elohim, and that the word pre-dates Muhammad, Islam’s prophet. Besides ignoring history, Andrew says, the government also conveniently ignores its universal use among Christians in the Middle East.
“Since the status quo remains, we will not use the word ‘Allah’ in our publication” until the court says otherwise, Andrew said. “In fact we have not been using it since our January edition.”
Since 1970, the government of Malaysia has consistently championed Islam as a parallel source of identity and nationalism among the politically dominant Malay-Muslim majority. Dress codes, cultural norms and the Malay language underwent a rapid Islamization in tandem with discriminative actions against minority groups.
Christians were particularly hard-hit by the effort in the name of national unity. Licences are rarely issued for church buildings in the capital city, Kuala Lumpur. New evangelical congregations had to meet at either hotels or warehouses for their Sunday services while Islamic semiotics and terminologies swamped the intellectual and official discourse. Conversion of Christians to Islam were particularly trumpeted by the media.
These efforts have largely failed. Local churches continued to grow, and the number of secret Muslim converts to Christianity began to rise.
At the same time, pandemic corruption and political authoritarianism have gradually led to a sense of disenchantment with political Islam among many. This erosion in Malay-Islam dominance has led to political bankruptcy, as evidenced by disastrous results for the ruling coalition during March 2008 general elections.
Given these political realities, Malay elites believe they can ill afford to be seen as soft on minority “encroachment,” and observers say this need to ingratiate Islamists lies at the root of the tussle over non-Muslim use of the word “Allah.” Officially, however, the government says only that use of the word among non-Muslims could create “confusion” among Muslims.
The Herald has a circulation of 13,000 and an estimated readership of 50,000. The newspaper is sold in Catholic churches and is not available from newsstands.
Malaysia’s population is about 60 percent Muslim, 19 percent Buddhist and 9 percent Christian. About 6 percent are Hindu, with 2.6 percent of the population adhering to Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions.
Arabicization of Malay Language
The debate over “Allah” follows an effort by the government to promote the Arabicization of the Malay language at the expense of Sanskrit and Malay terms. When a Malaysian student has to refer to a pig in an essay or test, the required term is the Arabic khinzir.
Other Malay terms such as pokok (tree) and bunga (flower), long used to refer to loan principal and interest respectively, have been expunged from school texts in favor of the Arabic kaedah (base) and faedah (benefit).
Some sources indicate that the Arabicization of the Malay language, however, has come with unintended consequences, such as making Christian mission work and translation easier. Since the Malay vocabulary has its limitations, Christians can use time-tested Arabic-derived terms to provide meaningful context.
For a long time, the only Malay Bible available in Malaysia was the Indonesian “Al Kitab,” which, included the word “Allah.” As Bahasa Malaysia (official name of the Malay language in Malaysia) and Bahasa Indonesia are very similar, the “Al Kitab” can be easily understood by a native speaker of Malay. As a result, the “Al Kitab” was viewed as an unwelcome missionary tool by Malaysian authorities. Its legal status was heatedly contested behind closed doors during the 1981-2003 reign of then-Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad.
Significant Christian indigenous populations in East Malaysia use Bahasa Malaysia as a language of wider communication. The Malay-language content of the Herald reportedly serves just that need: using the national language with universal terms across a multi-lingual Babel of tribal Catholic communities in East Malaysia.
（End）
