KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 7 —  Pakatan Rakyat de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim questioned the sincerity of the Home Ministry for allowing a public demonstration against the recent “Allah” ruling. The ruling allowed the Catholic weekly Herald to use the term to describe the Christian God in their national language edition.

Anwar (picture) also accused Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein of being hypocritical in allowing the demonstration as his ministry has previously denied and banned public rallies organised by Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

“I am not opposed to demonstration, you can express yourself peacefully. I am questioning the hypocrisy of the Minister of Home Affairs,” the Permatang Pauh MP told reporters outside the Federal Territory Syariah Court here today.

”I question the sincerity of the minister that will help to sponsor a demonstration that they want but hit others that they don’t want to hold any peaceful demonstration. Peaceful demonstration must be allowed in the country.

”If we agree or not, that is a different question,” he added.

The Home Ministry yesterday announced that they will allow a public demonstration planned by Muslim groups tomorrow at the Kampung Baru mosque to proceed and will only take action if “things get out of hand.” Hishammuddin explained that the protest will be monitored and that action will only be taken if the need arises. Anwar blamed the current religious crisis to the negligence of the Home Ministry and its failure to properly engage with the different religious community in the country.

”This is odd because one hand you appeal for calm but there is a clear division in terms of abuse explained by religious scholars. Many have contended that this is permissible.

“Their concerns are regarding proselytisation by the Christian missionaries on Muslims so the discourse is somewhat disconnected. So what I think the Home Ministry should have done much earlier is to call up the Christian representatives and discuss with them. They have failed to do that and they have gone to this stage due to their negligence and failure to attend the issue early enough,” he explained.

The Dec 31 High Court ruling  caused an uproar with some Muslims threatening to take their dissatisfaction to the streets tomorrow. Following the uproar, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak called for calm and promised that the government would take the necessary actions. Najib has also supported the right of Muslims to protest the ruling, the execution of which has been stayed pending appeal.

Anwar also agreed that there must calm and pointed out that the demonstration maybe politically motivated. ”At this stage, we must call for calm and have frank exchanges between religious authorities, social society groups, Muslim groups and non-Muslim groups. That would be the best solution because when it comes to a decision to allow demonstration, you have a clear hypocritical stand on the part of the minister of home affairs.
“One hand to you disallow people to express themselves on legitimate grounds but when it comes to this, they think how about the political benefits. I think in political it is not wise to conduct any sort of meetings when emotions are high.

”I recommend strongly that we should conduct more serious meetings between Muslims and Christians in particular,” he said, echoing the call made by some opposition leaders. Anwar added that the court ruling is not against any Islamic law but understands the fear expressed by some Muslims.

”From my understanding referring to the renowned religious scholars, they all say that there is nothing in Islam that forbids the use of the word Allah but what is expressed is the fear of proselytisation by the Christian missionaries. So that has to be dealt with separately. We could put laws in the country which stop the proselytisation in this country if any.

“But we cannot incite religion and religious sentiments like this because after we are taught not to only live as Muslims but to respect the sanctity of religions, including Christianity. “So you have to inter-marry between what is deemed to be an Islamic jurisprudence view point and the concerns of … missionary activities,” he added.


The Malaysian Insider