Dipetik dari The Star Online
Saturday January 24, 2009
KOTA KINABALU: Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Bernard Dompok is appealing to the Home Ministry to allow the Catholic newsletter Herald to continue using the word “Allah” in its Bahasa Malaysia edition until the courts decide.He said the matter was now in court and the Home Ministry should allow the due process of the justice system instead of insisting the Herald stop using the word.
“I hope the Home Affairs Ministry will let it rest and let the courts decide. I feel everyone should be open minded when it comes to worship,” he said, adding that Bahasa Malaysia was a language of all Malaysians.
Dompok said the Herald was a small organisation with about 14,000 readers among the Catholics in a country with about two million Christians.
He added there was no need for the Home Ministry to rush into stopping the use of the word.
“The ministry is acting in a hurry, I think they are using a strong language,” Dompok told reporters after giving cash gifts to top performing students at SK St Theresa in Penampang here.
He said the Herald Bahasa Malaysia publication licence was only approved after he brought it up at a Cabinet meeting recently — but on condition that they should not use the word Allah in reference to God.
Dompok said the word Allah to refer to God among Christians in the Arab world and even in Indonesia was accepted as a universal term.
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