Singapore (Michele Green), 14 January 2010:
More places of worship belonging to religious minorities in Malaysia have been targeted in a continuing dispute about the use of "Allah" by non-Islamic faiths, and the World Council of Churches has expressed "deep concern" about the situation in the Muslim-majority country.
In Geneva, WCC general secretary the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit urged, "immediate action by both the [Malaysian] government and civil society to resolve the conflict in order to avoid renewed hostilities and escalation of violence in society".
Court decision
The attacks against Christian churches followed a court decision that outraged Muslim hardliners, as it opened the way for Christians and other non-Muslims to use the word "Allah" in their religious publications and prayers. At least 10 churches are reported to have been attacked.
In the most recent incidents, St Elizabeth's Catholic Church in Johor, southern Malaysia, was splashed with red paint early on 14 January, and stone throwers attacked a Sikh temple in a Kuala Lumpur suburb the previous day. Malaysian Sikhs also use the word "Allah" in their prayers. A 100-year-old mirror was broken in the Kuala Lumpur attack.
Violent minority
In a letter to Malaysian churches, released on 13 January, Tveit said the controversy over the Allah ruling, "generated by a small sector of Muslims", was "very disturbing". This was especially so because, "Christians in majority Muslim countries all over the world … have used the word 'Allah' for God for centuries."
Vandals on 14 January ransacked the offices of the legal firm that had represented the Roman Catholic-run Herald newspaper in its court case against a government ban on the use of the word "Allah" for God in the newspaper's Malay-language edition. A judge ruled earlier in the month that the newspaper could print the word "Allah" but, following an outcry from hardliners, the government has mounted an appeal to the decision.
A lawyer for the legal firm told reporters that staff had come into the offices in the morning only to find the locks cut, and drawers open with papers scattered on the floor. The Malaysian Bar Association condemned the break in and demanded a thorough investigation.
"Criticism and dissent are legitimate forms of expression but threats, coercion, intimidation or violence are unacceptable," said Ragunath Kesavan, the bar association's president.
On 12 January, Malaysia's home affairs minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, told the national television station TV3 that the government would not hesitate to use the internal security act to punish those behind race attacks. "We will act against anybody irrespective of their background," he said.
60 percent Muslims
About 60 percent of Malaysia's population are Muslims, while the rest, mostly ethnic Chinese or Indians, are Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs and Hindus. Christians constitute nine percent of the country's 26 million people.
In one attack against a church building on 8 January, Molotov-cocktail wielding assailants escaped on a motorcycle after fire bombing the offices of the Metro Tabernacle Church, part of the Assemblies of God movement, near Kuala Lumpur. The offices were gutted.
