ICC Note: In the past, Malaysia has maintained the reputation of being a dominantly Muslim country who is tolerant of minority religions, such as Christianity. Recently, however, there has been a notable growth in “Islamization” and implementation of sharia law, accredited to the Malaysian Islamic Party, also known as PAS. PAS wants to implement hudud ,which is sharia-sanctioned punishments, to violators of the law. This means that an offender who is not Muslim would be sentenced to the same sort of punishment that a Muslim violating sharia law would. It is crucial to acknowledge the fact that this law is neither fair nor equitable to minorities who do not share the same dominant religion. 

6/27/16, Malaysia, (National Catholic Register)

Like its bigger neighbor Indonesia, Malaysia has mostly had the reputation of a Muslim-majority country that does not oppress its religious minorities. It’s live-and-let-live disposition is far removed from the rigors faced by Christians in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where churches cannot be built nor Mass said; or Pakistan, where Christians are expected to adhere to a strict anti-blasphemy law that critics say favors Islam over other faiths; or Iraq and Syria, where hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled war and ensuing attacks by Islamist militias.

At St. John’s Cathedral and other churches in Kuala Lumpur, a modern and lively city of around 2 million people, worshippers gather every Sunday for Masses in English and in Tamil, the main language of Malaysia’s 7% minority descended from South-Asian settlers who migrated during British colonial rule, as well as in Tagalog, the language of many of the tens of thousands of Filipino migrant workers living in wealthier-neighbor Malaysia.

But despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s praise for Malaysia in late 2015, during an official visit to the country, describing it as “a majority-Muslim country that represents tolerance and peace,” there are signs of a growing Islamization in politics in this country of 30 million people, where around 60% of the population is Muslim.

Non-Muslims have been barred from using the Arabic term “Allah” to denote God, with authorities confiscating Bibles containing the proscribed word, after the local Catholic Church lost a legal challenge to allow non-Muslims to keep using the word, which was a long-established linguistic practice.

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