From Malaysiakini: In a landmark judgment, the Kuala Lumpur High Court presented the Catholic Church a belated Christmas present by ruling that the Home Ministry's blanket ban on the use of the word 'Allah' is illegal.In making the decision to allow the motion by the Catholic Church to set aside the ban, High Court judge Lau Bee Lan stated that the minister's order is “illegal, null and void”.
She said that Catholic weekly The Herald can use the word 'Allah' and that the term is not exclusive to Islam.
This overturning of the Home Ministry's earlier ban will allow the Catholic weekly Herald and other non-Islamic publications to use the word 'Allah' as a direct translation for the word 'God' in the Malay language versions of their publications.
Justice Lau said that all Malaysians had the constitutional right to use the word 'Allah'.
However, given the implication of the case, it is likely that the Home Ministry will appeal against the decision to the higher courts.
The landmark case, which was supposed to be heard at the Jalan Duta court complex yesterday, had been postponed to today because Lau said she needed more time to consider her decision.
National security vs religious freedom
The Home Ministry had invoked concerns of national security and said that the ban was to avert any confusion that could ensue should non-Islamic publications use the word 'Allah' as a substitute for 'God'.
The ministry asserted that 'Allah' was exclusive to Islam as a term for the 'one true God'. Hence, other religions could not use it as a generic term.
The Catholic Church, in filing the judicial review, however disputed this and argued that the word 'Allah' predates Islam as a generic term for 'God' and has been in use in many places, even in the Middle East.
It said that in Malaysia, the term 'Allah' is widely used among indigenous Christian tribes in Sabah and Sarawak.
The church also argued that the ban goes against the principle of freedom of religion and religious practices as outlined in the federal constitution.
The Herald, circulated among the country's 850,000 Catholics, nearly lost its publishing licence last year for using the word 'Allah'. The paper is printed in four languages, with a circulation of 14,000 copies a week.
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