Attackers damage three churches in Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur: Three Malaysian churches were attacked with firebombs, causing extensive damage to one, as Muslims prevented Christians from using the word Allah, escalating religious tensions in the multiracial country.

Many Malay Muslims, who make up 60 per cent of the population, are incensed by a recent High Court decision to overturn a ban on Roman Catholics using Allah as a translation for God in the Malay-language edition of their main newspaper, the Herald.

The government refuses to make an exception, even though the Herald's Malay edition is read only by Christian indigenous tribes in the remote states of Sabah and Sarawak.

At yesterday's prayers at two main mosques in downtown Kuala Lumpur, young worshippers carried banners and gave fiery speeches, vowing to defend Islam.

The demonstrations were held inside the mosque compounds to follow a police order against protests on the streets. Participants dispersed peacefully afterward.

Malaysia is often held up as a model for other Islamic countries because of its economic development, progressive society and generally peaceful co-existence between the Malay majority and the ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities who are mostly Christians, Buddhists and Hindus.

The controversy, however, has the potential to shatter that carefully nurtured harmony, drive a deep racial wedge and scare away sorely needed foreign investment as the country struggles to emerge from the global financial crisis.

Prime Minister Najib Razak condemned the attacks on the churches by unidentified assailants, who struck before dawn in different suburbs of Kuala Lumpur. He said the government would "take whatever steps it can to prevent such acts".

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussain said the country's leaders were very concerned about the situation. "We don't want this to spread out into something else ... I am not only assuring the minorities, I am assuring all Malaysians — anybody who is in Malaysia — that they are safe," he told reporters.

In the first attack, the ground-level office of the three-storey Metro Tabernacle Church was destroyed in a blaze set off by a firebomb thrown by attackers on motorcycles soon after midnight, police said.

Two other churches were attacked hours later, with one sustaining minor damage while the other was not damaged.