English daily The Star today stressed that no malice was intended by the publication of a picture of American singer Erykah Badu with body art that included the Arabic word for Allah.
Instead, it was the ignorance of the non-Muslim editors who did not recognise the word Allah in Arabic, claimed the daily in an editorial today.
“Admittedly, we have slipped up and made mistakes. But then again, no person or organisation is perfect.
"We often assume that because the many different communities of various ethnicities have lived side by side for so long, we should all be intimately familiar with all aspects of every race, religion and culture in this country.
"In large part we do know."But mistakes can happen out of carelessness, thoughtlessness, plain silliness or, as in the case of the photo of American singer Erykah Badu’s body art with the word Allah in Arabic, ignorance," read the article.
The Star said all of its editors regardless of race and belief know that they must never use any image of the Prophet Muhammad or any photo showing the text of the Holy Quran, and there are plenty of such images from its foreign wire services.
"Normally, if our editors come across any photos with words or text in a script or alphabet they are not familiar with and it can be in Urdu, Dutch, Chinese and of course Arabic they will find out what the words mean because we will not use photos containing anything that is offensive.
"Unfortunately, the editors who used the Badu photograph are non-Muslims and they did not recognise the word Allah in Arabic.
"Ignorance may not be a good excuse but this is the real story behind the mistake. We wish to reiterate that it was made with no ill intention or malice," it said.
After realising the mistake, The Star said, it immediately purged the photograph from its website and archives, followed by publishing an apology online and on Twitter on Monday and in the newspaper the next day.
“Today, we once again apologise to all Muslims for the mistake and assure them that there was absolutely no niat jahat.”
The MCA-owned daily was hauled up by the Home Ministry over the incident and a show-cause letter was issued.
Subsequently, The Star suspended two editors.
However, right-wing Malay NGO Perkasa insisted that the ministry must take stern action against the daily or suspend its printing permit, or else it will organise a boycott against the newspaper.
The Information, Communications and Culture Ministry also bannedBadu’s concert slated for yesterday.
Love your art work. I've seen so many abstracts in the muslim craft and they are very beautiful.
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