Putrajaya has stopped the distribution of some 2,000 copies of this week's edition of the Catholic weekly Herald in Sabah, raising tension between the Catholic Church and the Barisan Nasional government.
Herald editor Reverend Father Lawrence Andrew told The Malaysian Insider that the forwarding company was informed by the Home Ministry that the copies were not to be distributed.
"As always, the Home Ministry will pick up a copy for vetting purposes when it arrives in Kota Kinabalu.
"But this time, after picking up the copy, the authorities informed the forwarding company on Friday morning that the consignment cannot be distributed," he said.
The forwarding company followed up with the Home Ministry that same evening on the status, and was told again that there was no "go-ahead" from Putrajaya for the weekly to be distributed.
Andrew said the word "Allah" was used in inverted commas in this issue, but only in reference to the comments and articles following recent court ruling.
On October 14, a three-man Court of Appeal bench ruled that he Herald was banned from using the word Allah in the publication's Bahasa Malaysia section, overturning a High Court decision in December 2009.
In the judgment, the court found that the word Allah was not essential to or is an integral part of Christianity.
The ruling has since attracted various comments and feedback, even from Muslim scholars at the international stage.
Locally, politicians and constitutional lawyers had criticised the ruling.
This latest development has raised eyebrows as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had recently told an audience in Sabah that East Malaysian Christians are free to use the word Allah in their worship and publications, including the Bahasa Malaysia bible, Al-Kitab.
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Tan Sri Joseph Kurup also commented on the issue, saying that Christians in West Malaysia can use the word freely in their services in church.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the ban on the word Allah only applied to Herald and no other publications.
The latest minister to comment on the issue four days ago was Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, who added more confusion to the Allah ruling when he said that East Malaysians cannot use the word in West Malaysia.
Lawrence Andrew reiterated that the reference to Allah in this week's Herald was merely in reference to the news that has been circulating in the media.
"After all, we are a Catholic newspaper that disseminates news to the Catholic community, and we used the word in quotes," he said.
He then referred to an article in the Bahasa Malaysia section headlined "Uskup Bumiputera seru jangan takut guna 'Allah'!" where the bishop for the Keningau archdiocese, Datuk Cornelius Piong, had called on Catholics in Sabah to continue using the word Allah, as they have done for generations.
Andrew urged Putrajaya to release the 2,000 copies as there is nothing objectionable that appears in the publication, other than merely reporting the news.
He said some 14,000 copies of the Herald are on sale in churches this weekend, and that it is a "direct shipment from the Herald office to churches".
"It is not for anybody else. It is a copy for churches only. There are no vendors involved," he said.
It is learnt that the 2,000 Herald copies in Sabah are still with the forwarding company.
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