The Malaysian Insider – RELATED CONTENT
- Putrajaya now advises Herald not to use ‘Allah’ word at all
Putrajaya has told the Catholic weekly Herald that it should refrain from using any articles, or even letters, containing the word “Allah”, months after the Court of Appeal affirmed the home minister's right to ban the word from its Bahasa publications.
The advisory, dated January 20, in effect serves to restrict the use of the word in the entire publication.
The Home Ministry's publications and Quranic text division head Hashimah Nik Jaafar confirmed that a notice to this effect was served to Herald editor Father Lawrence Andrew last week.
She stressed, however, that the notice was merely an advisory, which the publication could choose to follow.
"We are just advising. This issue is still in court, so they will have to respect the Court of Appeal's decision for now," Hashimah told The Malaysian Insider.
She was referring to the decision in October last year which overturned a 2009 High Court decision which allowed Herald to use the word “Allah” in its Bahasa Malaysia section of the publication.
In the judgment, the court found that the word “Allah” was not essential to or an integral part of Christianity.
The Catholic Church has filed an appeal against the decision with the Federal Court, which is expected to hear the case on March 5.
Hashimah said the publication was using the word “Allah” in the Herald through articles from blogs or in letters to the editor touching on the controversy.
"It can be seen as contempt of court as the case has not yet been heard in the Federal Court," she added.
Hashimah said the ministry was not "angry" but hoped that the Catholic Church could respect the court in this matter.
"They have already appealed. So why don't they wait for the decision first?"
Shortly after the Court of Appeal issue, Putrajaya stopped the distribution of some 2,000 copies of the Herald in Sabah on October 25.
The "stop distribution" order was believed to be over the use of the word “Allah”, which was used in inverted commas to refer to the comments and articles following the court ruling.
The Home Ministry lifted the ban two days later amid public furore and intervention from several Sabah and Sarawak Christian politicians.
The ministry defended its actions, saying it only did so to ensure that the word "Allah" did not appear in the latest issue of the weekly and clarified that only 53 copies were seized by the ministry's Al-Quran Text and Publications Controls Department.
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Idris Jala had said then that he believed the whole issue was a misunderstanding.
He said there would not be further problems over the distribution of the weekly in Sabah and Sarawak despite the court ruling.
"Christians in Sabah and Sarawak can continue to use the word ‘Allah’ in their worship and publications. So the distribution of the Herald weekly is not a problem," he was quoted as saying.
The issue erupted in 2009 when the Home Ministry threatened to revoke the Herald’s permit for using the word “Allah” to refer to God.
This action prompted the Catholic Church, led by Archbishop Emeritus Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam, to file a judicial review application naming the Home Ministry and the government as respondents, seeking, among others, a declaration that the ministry's decision to prohibit the use of the word "Allah" in Herald was illegal. – February 5, 2014.
