YOURSAY 'I cannot understand what the government is afraid of - some NGOs making a fuss about the use of the word ‘Allah' by non-Muslims?'

Court wrong in 'Allah' decision, says law expert

Awakened: Constitutional law expert Abdul Aziz Bari, well articulated. The judges had completely ignored the right to religious freedom as stipulated in our constitution.

You are right that the judge is tampering on the rights of Christians to use ‘Allah' in their Bahasa Malaysia publications. The ground of judgment using "possible confusion" by the Muslims and Christians were unfounded and without evidence.

The judges are using their own opinions and perceptions to make judgments which interfere with the freedom of the Christian churches and authorities.

Statements from the judges that the Christian Indonesians have erred in using ‘Allah' in their AlKitab and also ‘Allah is not an integral part of the bibles in East Malaysia' were unfounded and without evidence.

Toffeesturn: I am no lawyer but I though the job of the appellate court was to review the judgment made in the first place by the High Court judge and see if it was bad in law.

If that was the case, they could have interfered with her judgment and overturned it based on facts of law. I do not see them saying anything about how wrong her judgment was, in fact I think they either do not know how to read the law or just decided to find some excuse to glorify Umno in this exercise.

I wonder why in this particular case, it was all three Muslim Malay judges too. To say Allah is not an integral part of Christianity, is wrong. Allah is an integral part of every religion known to man.

Allah is too great to be legislated and these imbeciles think they can. As a Christian when praying in Bahasa Malaysia, I shall continue to use ‘Allah' for God. Allah is my God as much as he is yours.

lr: I cannot understand what the government is afraid of - some NGOs making a fuss about the use of the word ‘Allah' by non-Muslims? Or the fear of loss of political support?

Abdul Aziz is right. If Catholic weekly The Herald is not read by Muslims, then no one has anything to worry about. The Herald is an internal publication and not meant for public circulation. So it should not be read by Muslims.

Then how can it be a threat to them? Unless they purposely get hold of it and read it, or go online and read it from there. Then who's to blame - The Herald or the Muslims?

Guyintheglass: Here's an extract from the Reid Commission report with respect to Article 3 of the Constitution:

"State Religion 169. We have considered the question whether there should be any statement in the Constitution to the effect that Islam should be the State religion. There was universal agreement that if any such provision were inserted it must be made clear that it would not in any way affect the civil rights of non-Muslims.

"In the memorandum submitted by the Alliance it was stated the religion of Malaysia shall be Islam. The observance of this principle shall not impose any disability on non-Muslim nationals professing and practising their own religions and shall not imply that the State is not a secular State."

Read this against the interpretation given by the appellate court.

Cala: I do not agree with any suggestion that both the executive and the court are ignorant of the real content of the Constitution.

With due respect to Abdul Aziz, both bodies do certain things on purpose. They do it as a respond to post-NEP (New Economic Policy) era where the continuation of past practices is paramount.

In other words, the politics of the dominant majority dictates that ‘Ketuanan Melayu' continues, and what a better way to display it when they are in a position to interpret and re-interpret any law in a manner that suits their agenda.

In a nutshell, it is to do with politics, not law.

Cogito Ergo Sum: Aziz Bari, your reasoning is impeccable. There are rules to interpretation and the underlying principle is applying common sense and being fair to the disputing parties.

When sitting in judgment, one judges as an neutral and objective observer. The judge has to be fair. Has the court been fair here?

Jesse: The judges' decision is lacking in jurisprudence and merely perpetrates a government policy which is equally wrong.

They could have asked why the minister is so adamant that the word ‘Allah' be banned when it has been used by Christians even before the founding of Islam.

On what basis did they decide that it threatens communal harmony when the whole matter was whipped up by the government ahead of Umno's election? The issue has been politicised and the judges unwittingly or otherwise when along with it.

The calibre of current judges are suspect and the several judgments confirm the suspicion.

Visu: Aziz Bari, you are an infidel according to the ex-Johor mufti Mohd Nooh Gadut for questioning the appeallate court ruling.

Also I am concerned whether I can sing the national anthem as it requires me to seek the blessing of ‘Tuhan' and not ‘Allah' to bestow blessing and happiness so that our Muslim king can have a successful reign.

Is it okay for non-Muslims to pray to an unIslamic God to bless a Muslim? I don't want to fall foul of the law, especially now that our brilliant appeallate court judges have interpreted section (3) 1 of the constitution.

Should I then stop singing the national anthem as it might insult our king? Should not the word ‘Tuhan' be replaced with the word ‘Allah' in the Negaruku and be sung only by the Muslim Malaysians as the kafirs at not entitled to the word ‘Allah'?

Please, can anybody out there, especially the three brilliant judges, help me?

Brahman: It's not about protecting Islam, It's not about protecting the Malays and it's not about the word ‘Allah', it is about securing more votes from the hinterland Malays for BN or Umno.

Umno-BN has lost the non-Malay votes as the non-Malays are exposed to the Internet and outside information about the going-ons of Umno and their stooges in BN.

For Umno to survive, it has to garner the support of the Malays in the hinterland as the urban Malays are more open and have the same access to information as the non-Malays to know what is wrong or right.

Umno must be seen to be a champion for Islam and the Malays even at the expense of making Malaysia look like a backward uneducated society and Islam as a non-tolerant religion.

Behind this charade, Umno and the stooges would continue plundering the country whilst leaving the hinterland Malays to support and protect them in their ignorance of what is going on. Hopefully, the new generation would enlightened the rural Malays to this deception.

Anonymous #41781522: Abdul Aziz, you are a brave and just Muslim that I highly respected. Thank you for speaking out.

How I wish we can respect one another and accept the differences between us. After all, we are all the creation of the one God.

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