The Church had won a landmark judgment in 2009 when the High Court ruled it had the right to use “Allah” in the Bahasa Malaysia section of its weekly newspaper, The Herald.
But it has effectively been prevented from doing so for the past 15 months pending the home ministry’s appeal of the ruling.
“It is heartening that the Word of God — the Bible or the Alkitab (as the Malay-language version is called locally) — is no longer a threat to national security,” said Father Lawrence Andrew who edits The Herald.
The home ministry has consistently argued that the word “Allah” is reserved for Muslim use only; any move to bring in Christian literature containing the word is regarded as a national security threat.
“(Datuk Seri) Idris Jala had emphasised that there was no problem, no threat since the ISA gazette of 1982 was implemented.
“The 1982 gazette as cited by Jala only substantiates the Catholic Church’s case,” Andrew added.
Jala, a Sarawakian Christian, said that the government had decided on the release of the Alkitab in line with a 1982 gazette under the Internal Security Act which allows limited and controlled importation and circulation on the condition that the books are stamped: “For Christians Only.”
“Since 1982, with this gazette, there have been no problems in its implementation. As such, taking into account this fact, the government has decided to apply the 1982 gazette and release the bibles accordingly,” the statement said.
Pointing to the Internal Security (Prohibition of Publications) (No.4) Order 1982, signed by then-deputy home minister, Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Tamby Chik, and the gazette on March 22, 1982, the document stated that the ban on the Alkitab was now cancelled.
It also stated that “the printing, publication, sale, issue, circulation or possession of the publication which is described in the Schedule and which is prejudicial to the national interest and security of the Federation is prohibited subject to the condition that this prohibition shall not apply to the possession or use in Churches of such publication by persons professing the Christian religion, throughout Malaysia”.
Andrew said the 1982 document was proof the home ministry had no right to seize the Malay bibles and lock them away, and that it was a separate issue from the “Allah” court case.
The priest further accused the home ministry of confusing and misleading the public on the issues at stake by linking the seizure of 35,000 Malay bibles to the Catholic Church’s pending court case.
“The bibles detained now have got nothing to do with The Herald’s court case pending in the Court of Appeal on the use of the word ‘Allah’,” he said.
“The High Court decision was confined to and only concerned the right of The Herald in that publication and has no relevance whatsoever to the publication, sale, issue, circulation and possession of other publications, including the Alkitab,” he added.
Andrew was responding to earlier news reports of Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein saying he could not order the release of the Alkitab because his hands were tied by the courts in the “Allah” case.
“We also cannot take any action (to release them) because our court case with the Catholic publication Herald is still pending,” Datuk Zaitun Ab Samad, the ministry’s Publications Control and Al-Quran Text division secretary, was cited as saying by online news portal, Malaysiakini.
She added that any action on the ministry’s part would be seen as contempt of court, citing a 1986 Cabinet decision on the matter to support her argument.
In his fight to defend the rights of the Malay-speaking Catholics, Andrew had unearthed several government papers as part of his research and made several copies available to The Malaysian Insider.
The priest’s lawyer, S. Selvarajah, who was also present at the interview with The Malaysian Insider, explained that the Cabinet could only make policies, which must be made into law and gazetted before it can take effect.
According to Selvarajah, there was no such ministerial order given in 1986, he said, and pulled out a copy of several letters signed by then-prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his then-deputy, Tun Ghafar Baba.
In a letter dated May 19, 1986, to the government’s chief secretary, Dr Mahathir had appended a memo from his deputy on a list of words in the national language that were allowed or prohibited for Christian use.
Ghafar did not include their full names, but most likely was referring to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who was then-education minister and the late James Ongkili, then-justice minister, before the latter left office two months later.
The trio also listed four words, including “Allah”, that Christians were barred from using — except on condition that the words “For Christianity” was written on the front cover of the books.
With the seizure of the bibles drawing protests from Christians nationwide, a majority of whom live in Sabah and Sarawak, the federal government was forced to take act yesterday.
The Christian Federation of Malaysia, which represents 90 per cent of churches in Malaysia, has said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak made a decision to release the Alkitabs but up until yesterday, the home ministry, which controls customs, had refused to hand over the bibles.
Christians, who make up close to 10 per cent of Malaysia’s 28 million population, use Bahasa Malaysia in Sabah and Sarawak churches to preach to the multi-ethnic congregation who each have a distinctive tribal language.
But evangelist churches there, such as Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB), have crossed the South China Sea to preach to the growing number of Sarawakians and Sabahans who are settling down in the peninsula after furthering their studies or finding work here.
“This is a reasonable compromise in managing the polarities of views between Christians and Muslims in the country,” Jala had said in his statement yesterday.
The Cabinet was set to discuss the issue on Friday with one eye on the Sarawak polls set to take place next month.
