A Special Report by ICC
03/24/2013 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – The Sultan of Malaysia has made it illegal for anyone besides Muslims to use the word ‘Allah,’ putting Christians at risk in a nation whose legal framework tacitly works against the interests of religious minorities.
Although ‘Allah’ is the Arabic word for God and used throughout the Malay translation of the Bible, Christians are now at risk of legal consequences for using the word in conversation, prayer or even in church services. Ryan Morgan, International Christian Concern’s Regional Manager for Southeast Asia, said “…the recent decree by Sultan Sharafuddin that the word ‘Allah’ may not be used by any non-Muslims places Christians at great risk of official discrimination for simply using the vocabulary that has been in their religious text for centuries.”
The new ruling only serves to firm up Malaysia’s national and religious identity, which are married together in a Constitution that defines ethnic Malays as Sunni Muslims – that to be  Malay is to be Muslim. Unfortunately, there is little or no thought for its implications on the freedom of religious minorities.
The decree reveals an inherent bias in the foundation of lawmaking – towards Islam and against religious minorities – which is at the heart of the problem in Malaysia. A Christian Malay is considered to be a contradiction in terms and a Malay cannot convert to Christianity without legal and social consequences, which effectively translate into persecution. Ethnic Malays seeking to convert from Islam must appeal to the Sharia system, which in many states bans apostasy. However, non-Muslims must convert to Islam in order to marry a Muslim citizen.
Restriction as Norm
Historically, Malaysia has had a habit of writing laws that limit freedom to convert, proselytize or practice religious freedom, which only breed hostility towards anyone who leaves Islam to become a Christian. As Mr. Morgan also said, “While outright persecution of religious minorities may not yet be a major issue in Malaysia, the current status quo cannot be maintained. No nation can expect to have a legal framework barring its citizens from freely changing their religious beliefs and not expect persecution to eventually result.”
The legal framework in Malaysia is such that it can be exploited to permit the violation of religious and civil liberties, in the name of national security. According to Human Rights Watch’s 2013 Annual Report on Malaysia, the government continued to violate rights to free association and peaceful public assembly. Most major newspapers and television and radio stations remain controlled by media companies close to political parties in the government coalition.
HRW and local civil society groups also documented police abuses, including excessive use of force during arrests, suspicious deaths in custody, failure to adequately investigate such incidents and to hold accountable those responsible; and inadequate post-mortem inquiries and investigations.
According to Amnesty International’s 2012 Annual Report on Malaysia, police investigated law professor Aziz Bari under the Sedition Act for an online posting which criticized the Sultan of Selangor’s support for a church raid by the state Islamic religious police. He was also investigated by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, and suspended from his post at the International Islamic University.
In his September 2011 speech, Prime Minister Najib pledged to replace the notorious Internal Security Act (ISA), which permitted long-term detention without trial, and other rights-restricting legislation. But the government planned to replace the ISA with a law which would likewise allow for indefinite detention without trial. In November 2011, the authorities detained another 13 people under the ISA.
Although Malaysia has expressed a commitment to universal human rights, it has contradicted itself by emphasizing the need for “checks and balances” between security and freedom, often putting security before freedom. This translates into restricting the freedom of Christians – or persecution of Malays who become Christians – in the “interest” of national security.
 
Majoritarianism
With regards to the new ruling, the possibility of political motivations is not unlikely. With elections coming up in Malaysia, Greg Musselman of Voice of the Martyrs Canada told Mission Network News, “You’ve got the political, you’ve got the religious, and it becomes very difficult for those that may be suffering harm because of it…I kind of see this whole ‘use of the word Allah’ [issue] as a bit of a distraction here. And again, it could be used by those more militant aspects of Islam to try to cause problems for the Christians.”
It is not uncommon for countries to introduce laws that firm up the religious identity of the nation to demonstrate their commitment to the majority population and thereby seduce them into the voting booth. But the trouble is that when a legal precedent, such as this particular ruling, has been set, it can be exploited by extremists to target Christians, making them vulnerable to legalized acts of persecution without any consequence for the perpetrators. All of a sudden, you have a situation where Christians have been robbed of one of the central words in their vocabulary, while extremists wait for an opportunity to catch them using the word so they can take the law into their own hands.
Malaysia is a member of the UN Human Rights Council, but has not signed or ratified most core human rights treaties. According to HRW, the United States has not pressed Malaysia over its failure to honor international standards of human rights, preferring security cooperation to speaking out about human rights. As it stands, Malaysia acts quite autonomously to protect its own religious and political interests at the expense of Christians and other religious minorities.