Malaysia sets up interfaith committee to ease religious tensions

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia has set up an interfaith committee of religious leaders to promote better understanding between the country's Muslim majority and other faiths, news reports said Wednesday.

The committee would make recommendations on specific cases and general interfaith issues, but would not have legal powers, the Star newspaper reported.

Its members were to include leaders from all the major religious groups of the mainly Muslim nation, including representatives of the Islamic councils.

"It is the first step in the right direction but there is miles to go yet," said Reverend Thomas Philips, a member of the new committee and president of the Malaysian Consultative Council on Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism.

"The most important thing is for us to come together and talk and move forward," Philips was quoted as saying.

Non-Muslims make up just over a third of Malaysia's 28-million population.

Minority religious groups have increasingly complained that their rights to practice freely have been threatened under the Muslim-dominated government.

Religious tensions reached their highest point in January, when a leading Catholic church was torched and other houses of worship were attacked after a high court allowed Christians to use the word "Allah" to refer to God in the Malay language.

The ruling had upset some Muslims, who argued the word is exclusive to Islam, the country's official religion.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/317462,malaysia-sets-up-interfaith-committee-to-ease-religious-tensions.html.