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Sunday 1 March 2009

No free speech in Malaysia

The Press Association reports that the Malaysian government will issue a new decree restoring a ban on Christian publications using the word “Allah” to refer to God, officials have said.

Home Affairs Minister Syed Hamid Albar said a 16 February decree, which let Christian publications use the word as long as they specified that the material was not for Muslims, was a mistake, the national Bernama news agency reported.

The about-turn came after Islamic groups slammed the government and warned that even conditional use of the word by Christians would anger Muslims in the largely Islamic country.

You can read more here.

1 comment:

Andy Armitage said...

By Allah! You can't use the word “Allah” unless you're a Muslim? Well, Allah be buggered! How in Allah's name didn't we all know that? (They can read this in Malaisia, can't they?)