Malaysian police yesterday announced the arrest of eight men who allegedly attacked a Christian church with a firebomb — the first suspects in a spate of unprecedented assaults on churches that raised religious tensions in this Muslim-majority nation.
The attacks on 11 churches and a Sikh temple followed a Dec. 31 court verdict that allowed non-Muslims to use the word “Allah” to refer to God. The verdict upset many ethnic Malay Muslims who insist that letting Christians use the word could confuse some Muslims and entice them to convert.
The dispute has strained ties between Malays, who make up nearly two-thirds of Malaysia’s 28 million people, and minorities who complain about what they say is institutionalized religious discrimination.
Authorities have detained eight suspects since Tuesday in connection to a Jan. 7 attack on Kuala Lumpur’s Metro Tabernacle Church, which had its office gutted by fire, said Bakri Zinin, the federal police chief of criminal investigations.
It was the first and most serious of all the attacks on churches.
“We believe that we solved this case,” Bakri told a news conference.
The suspects were all Malays from 21 to 26 years old, according to a police statement. Police tracked them down after one of them sought treatment at a hospital for burn injuries, Bakri said.
They could be charged with “mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy” a place of worship, which is punishable by a maximum 20-year prison sentence and a fine. Police have obtained a court order to detain the men for at least a week pending further investigation.
The disquiet centers on a court ruling in which the Herald, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia, argued it has the right to use the word “Allah” in its Malay-language edition because the word predates Islam and is used by Christians in other predominantly Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Indonesia and Syria.
The verdict overturned a government ban on the use of the word in non-Muslim publications.
The government has appealed the decision while also condemning the church attacks and pledging to uphold freedom of religion guaranteed to minorities by the Constitution.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese