PUTRAJAYA, Aug 21 — With Malay supremacist group Perkasa set to descend on tomorrow's appellate court hearing on the “Allah” row, Minister in charge of national unity Tan Sri Joseph Kurup is urging all parties to accept the outcome — no matter which way it goes.
Describing the judiciary as a neutral arbiter, Kurup said vested parties should honour the court's decisions even as tempers flared anew over the contentious legal tussle between Christians and Muslim over the Arabic term.
"Let the court decide it because they are independent and whatever decision is given, we should respect it," Kurup told The Malay Mail Online and Sin Chew Daily in an interview yesterday.
But the minister in the prime minister's department, who currently holds the national unity and integration portfolio, declined to elaborate further on the brewing protest.
Perkasa's plans to rally in protest of the Catholic Church's bid to get the Court of Appeal to uphold a 2009 High Court ruling, in which the latter was allowed to use the Middle Eastern word "Allah" in its publication.
Given the violent reaction to the original decision, the rally has stoked fears over the possible response by protesters should the court decide in favour of the Catholic Church.
Yesterday, the Catholic Church urged Putrajaya to step in to stop any "untoward" events ahead of the hearing, after observing the possible religious tension arising from various remarks made over the "Allah" issue recently.
"We humbly request all parties to respectfully allow the judicial process to take its course and urge the relevant authorities to take necessary steps to prevent any untoward incidence," the Catholic Church's Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur wrote in a brief statement just a day after Perkasa's announcement.
On Monday, Perkasa secretary-general Syed Hassan Syed Ali said the rally was in support of the Home Ministry in its efforts to prohibit non-Muslims from referring to God as “Allah”.
“Perkasa also calls on other Muslims to join us at Putrajaya in great numbers this Thursday morning. Show our support towards efforts in defending the word 'Allah' from being used and misused by other religious believers,” Syed Hassan had said in an emailed statement to The Malay Mail Online.
Perkasa’s declaration came after Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said last Saturday that the Arabic word “Allah” is exclusive to Muslims, and that non-Muslims must stop challenging this “absolute right”.
Zahid also urged Muslim groups to unite and defend against what he seemed to view as an attempt by non-believers to undermine the country’s predominant religion.
The Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur filed an application last month to strike out the federal government’s appeal against the landmark High Court judgment that had sparked a string of attacks against places of worship, including the firebombing of a church.
Father Lawrence Andrew, the editor of Catholic newspaper Herald, told The Malay Mail Online last Thursday that Putrajaya’s appeal must be struck out because of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 10-point solution to Christians in 2011.
Najib’s 10-point solution was an assurance to Malaysia’s Christian population that they were free to bring in and use their bibles in Malay, as well as in other indigenous languages that contained the word “Allah”, after shipments of the holy book were banned.
Deep-running anger over the issue was again exposed last month when far-right Muslim groups railed against remarks by the Vatican’s first envoy to Malaysia, Archbishop Joseph Marino, on the controversy.
In an interview with the media, Marino had described the local churches’ arguments based on the government’s 10-point solution as “logical and acceptable”.
Perkasa and Jati, another radical Muslim group, accused Marino of interfering in domestic affairs and demanded his censure and expulsion from the country.
Marino later apologised for the remarks and denied he was meddling in the matter.
The “Allah” row erupted in 2008 when the Home Ministry threatened to revoke the Herald’s newspaper permit for its reference to God as “Allah”, prompting the Catholic Church to sue the government for violating its constitutional rights.
The 2009 High Court decision upholding the Catholic Church’s constitutional right to use the word “Allah” had shocked many Muslims that consider the word to only refer to the Islamic God.
Christians are Malaysia’s third-largest religious population at 2.6 million people, according to statistics from the 2010 census, behind Muslims and Buddhists.
