DAP has today clarified that its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng’s earlier call for the government to allow Christians to use the word ‘Allah’ only referred to the Malay version Bible in Sabah and Sarawak.

“This allegation (that the call referred to Christians in peninsula) is not true, and DAP is disappointed that the secretary-general’s statement has been twisted to form a different meaning,” said DAP assistant national publicity secretary Zairil Khir Johari in a statement today.

He stressed that Lim, in his Christmas message issued on Monday, did not at all mention the usage of ‘Allah’ in the peninsula.

“He only demanded that the word to be allowed in the Malay version of the Bible used by Christians in Sabah and Sarawak.

“Furthermore, the Malay version of the Bible can only be found in Sabah and Sarawak and not in peninsular Malaysia.

“Therefore the issue of using ‘Allah’ in peninsular Malaysia does not arise at all,” said Zairil, who is also Lim’s political secretary.

He also noted that as mentioned by Lim, the the word ‘Allah’ is not only being used by Christians in Indonesia and Middle East but also by the bumiputera in Sabah and Sarawak for dozens of years.

“Hence DAP hopes that the rights of the Christians among the bumiputera of Sabah and Sarawak would not be denied by the federal government,” added Zairil.

However, in the six-paragraph Christmas statement issued by Lim on Monday, he briefly touched on the ‘Allah’ issue in the second paragraph without specifying to whom he was referring to.

The second paragraph of the statement reads:

“For this reason, DAP urges the BN federal government to allow the usage of the word ‘Allah’ on the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Bible as has been allowed in Sabah and Sarawak for the last 50 years and practiced in the Middle East for more than a thousand years. Further, BN should stop using the fear tactics of a Christian state to frighten Malay voters to support BN when Christians have never sought a Christian state but instead pledged loyalty to the federal constitution that Islam is the religion of Malaysia.”

Catholic weekly The Herald in 2009 got into trouble with the Home Ministry when its Bahasa Malaysia edition used the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God in Christianity.

Landmark judgment

However in a landmark judgment in December 2009, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled that the Home Ministry’s blanket ban on the use of the word ‘Allah’ is illegal.

The ruling, which triggered a series of arson attacks on churches nationwide in the following month, was then suspended pending an appeal from the BN government that argued that the word ‘Allah’ was exclusive to Muslims.

The appeal is still pending in the Court of Appeal.

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