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Malaysia's highest court dismisses divisive 'Allah' case
Agence France Presse - June 23, 2014
The Catholic Church had been seeking to reverse a government directive banning it from referring to God by the Arabic word 'Allah' in the local Malay-language edition of its Herald newspaper.
But a seven-judge panel in the administrative capital Putrajaya has ruled a lower court decision that ruled in favour of the government will stand.
"It (the Court of Appeal) applied the correct test, and it is not open for us to interfere," chief justice Arifin Zakaria said. "Hence, the application is dismissed."
S. Selvarajah, one of the Church's lawyers, says the decision means the end of the court case. "It's a blanket ban. Non-Muslims cannot use the word," he said.
Ahead of the verdict, about one hundred Muslim activists gathered outside the court, shouting 'Allahu Akbar' or 'God is great' and held banners that read 'Uniting to defend the name of Allah'.
The dispute started in 2007 when the Home Ministry threatened to revoke the publishing permit of the Herald for using the Arabic word in its Malay-language edition.
The Catholic Church took legal action to challenge the directive, arguing 'Allah' had been used for centuries in Malay-language bibles and other literature to refer to 'God' outside of Islam.
But authorities say using 'Allah' in non-Muslim literature could confuse Muslims and entice them to convert, a crime in Malaysia.
An appeals court last October reinstated the ban, overturning a lower court's 2009 ruling in favour of the church that had led to a series of attacks on church buildings.
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