Malaysian Catholic paper seeks court order to use word 'Allah'

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2007

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — The publisher of a Malaysian Catholic newspaper has sought a court order to use the word Allah, the editor said Friday after the Muslim majority country banned its Malay-language section.

"We are in the view that we have the right to use the word Allah, (a right) which ... is now sought to be curtailed," Father Lawrence Andrew, editor of The Herald, told AFP.

Church leaders had said they used the word Allah when delivering sermons in Malay or write in the Malay language section of the 28-page weekly newspaper.

Religion and language are sensitive issues in multiracial Malaysia, which experienced deadly race riots in 1969.

Malaysian commentators have sounded alarm over the growing "Islamisation" of the country and the increasing...