The Sunday edition of Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia has accused Selangor Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim of encouraging Christian leaders to make statements deemed insulting to Islam due to his sympathetic stance for the community.

 

In an column by the daily's official editorial pseudonym 'Awang Selamat', it singled out The Herald editor Lawrence Andrew ( right ) who insisted that Christians will continue to use the word 'Allah' and Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM)  president Lee Min Choon for saying the society will continue to circulate the Al-Kitab.

 

The editorial said these two statements have aggravated the anger of Muslims.

 

"Clearly these two are getting extraordinary encouragement from Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim who is pressuring the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) to return the bibles it confiscated and new standard operating procedure for the agency...," the editorial read.

 

Jais had on Jan 2 raided BSM and confiscated over 300 Malay and Iban language Bibles which contained the word 'Allah'.

 

The religious authority said it was merely enforcing the Selangor Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Among Muslims) Enactment 1988 which bans non-Muslims from using the word 'Allah'.

 

The editorial piece accused Khalid of caving in to pressure from DAP and PKR's "liberal agenda".

 

"Between the sanctity of Islam and political mileage, he chose the latter," it said.