Thousands of Malaysian Christians came out for weekly services yesterday despite three new attacks in a campaign of fire-bombings that has sent tensions soaring in the Muslim-majority nation.
Two more churches and a Catholic convent school were targeted early yesterday, police said, although no one was injured. Molotov cocktails were thrown at the All Saints Church and the school in Taiping, in the northern state of Perak, and a bottle of kerosene was found in another church nearby before Sunday services.
Six churches have now been attacked since Friday in an escalating row over the use of the word “Allah” as a translation for the Christian God by non-Muslims.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Islamic groups have staged protests in response to a court ruling last week that gave a Catholic newspaper the right to print the word following a long-running dispute with the government over the issue.
“I think that people’s faith is greater than what’s happening around so they continue to go to church and pray for themselves as well as for the nation,” Council of Churches secretary-general Hermen Shastri said.
“But of course we are not blind to potential threats so churches have taken measures to increase security around their compounds, and [are] trusting the police and other enforcement agencies to keep a lookout for any suspicious individuals,” he said.
About 1,000 worshippers at the Catholic Church of Assumption in Kuala Lumpur, one of four in the Malaysian capital targeted by the arsonists, were briefed by parish priest Phillips Muthu on the incident and told to be patient.
“I told them we don’t want to blame any people, any quarter, any religion. We are peaceful and we are here to offer our prayer for the nation,” he told reporters at the church.
One worshipper who only wanted to be identified as Lee said reactions to the court ruling from sections of the Muslim community had been “quite shocking.”
“But I think the majority of Malaysians are still peace-loving and we should have dialogue to resolve this,” she said.
The 1,000-strong congregation of the Metro Tabernacle church, the worst damaged in the attacks, moved its service to a hall offered by Malaysia’s ruling party.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has called for calm and said the government will not tolerate any threat to racial harmony in the multicultural nation.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS