Malaysia top court rules Catholic newspaper may not use word ‘Allah’

June 23, 2014 By administrator

Malaysia’s top court has upheld a ban against a Catholic newspaper, which had wanted to use the word “Allah” to refer to God. The weekly insists that the ban is unconstitutional.

The Federal Court in Malaysia dismissed an appeal by the Malaysian Catholic weekly The Herald on Monday, ruling in favor of an appeals court which had banned the newspaper from using the word “Allah.”

Four of the seven justices ruled that “the use of Allah is not an integral part of the Christian faith.”

The Herald criticized the court’s decision soon after its release, insisting that it was infringing upon minority rights in the ethnically diverse South Asian nation.

“We are disappointed. The four judges who denied us the right to appeal did not touch on fundamental basic rights of minorities,” the newspaper’s editor, Rev. Lawrence Andrew, wrote.

“[The ruling] will confine the freedom of worship,” Andrew added. “We are a minority in this country, and when our rights are curtailed, people feel it.”

‘We thank Allah’

The leader of Muslim Malay rights groups, Ibrahim Ali, praised the court’s decision: “We thank Allah because the court’s decision has favored us this time.”

The legal dispute stems from a previous government ban on The Herald from using the term. The daily had taken its case to court, arguing the ban was unconstitutional, and subsequently won an appeal in 2009. However, the court’s decision to override the government sparked unrest in Malaysia, with some opponents of the ruling setting fire to and vandalizing Christian churches.

In October, The Herald reiterated its previous criticism of the ban, arguing that the term “Allah” has been the common term for God in the Malay language for centuries and should not pose a problem to Muslims.

Muslims comprise roughly 60 percent of the ethnically and religiously diverse country’s population, while Buddhists account for about 19 percent and Christians roughly 10 percent. Approximately 50 percent of Malaysians come from the ethnic Malay community, and a further 23 percent from the ethnic Chinese community.

kms/slk (AP, dpa)

Turkish PM blasts court ruling to lift Twitter ban

April 4, 2014 By administrator

April 4, 2014 – 12:37 AMT

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, April 4, criticized a Constitutional Court ruling that lifted his government’s ban on Twitter, according to AFP.

“We are of course bound by the Constitutional Court verdict, but I don’t have to respect it,” said the PM, a day after the U.S.-based social media site went live again in Turkey. “I don’t respect this ruling.”

Erdogan’s government has been rattled by the twin crises of street protests since last June and, since December, a torrent of online leaks on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube which appeared to implicate the premier’s inner circle in corruption.

YouTube remains banned since it was also used to leak an audio recording that was purportedly of a conversation of top government, military and spy officials weighing possible military action inside neighboring war-torn Syria.

Erdogan said on the Twitter case, that “the Constitutional Court should have rejected” the application to lift the block on the site which had been brought by an opposition lawmaker and two academics.

“All our national, moral values have been put aside,” he said about the spate of anonymously posted recordings. “Insults to a country’s prime minister and ministers are all around.”

The Internet crackdown has sparked protests from Turkey’s NATO allies and human rights groups, who have deplored it as curbing the right to free speech — a notion Erdogan dismissed.

“This is a commercial company which has a product,” he said of the San Francisco-based micro-blogging service. “It is not only Twitter. YouTube and Facebook are also commercial companies. It is everyone’s free will whether or not to buy their product. This has nothing to do with freedoms.”

Text of Swiss Appeal to European Court on Armenian Genocide Disclosed

April 2, 2014 By administrator

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

Two weeks ago — on the last day of the three-month deadline — the Swiss government decided to file an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the Perincek vs. Switzerland lawsuit.

Even though the text of the Swiss appeal has been kept under seal pending ECHR’s consideration, I was able to obtain a copy in French. This is the first time that the content of the Swiss appeal appears in the media.

The ECHR ruled on Dec. 17, 2013, that Swiss courts had violated the rights of Dogu Perincek, a minor Turkish party leader, who had traveled to Switzerland in 2005 with the explicit purpose of denying the Armenian Genocide. He had dared the Swiss authorities to arrest him for calling the Genocide “an international lie.”

Following his conviction for violating a Swiss law on racial discrimination, denial of genocide, and other crimes against humanity, Perincek appealed his sentence all the way to the Federal Tribunal, the highest court in Switzerland, which confirmed his guilt. He then applied to the European Court of Human Rights, accusing Switzerland of violating many of his rights, including that of free speech. Surprisingly, five of the seven ECHR judges exonerated Perincek, finding that Switzerland violated certain provisions of the European Convention.

If left unchallenged, ECHR’s ruling would have been a major setback for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, particularly before the worldwide commemoration of the Centennial of the Genocide to be held on April 24, 2015. Even more importantly, by exceeding their mandate on the alleged infringements of Perincek’s rights, the majority of the ECHR judges raised questions about the validity of the Armenian Genocide. They also drew unwarranted and superfluous distinctions between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust, ruling that punishing the deniers of the former is illegal, while convicting those denying the latter is proper.

Given the detrimental consequences of this unjustified ruling on the Armenian Cause, the government of Armenia, Armenian communities worldwide, and Swiss-Armenians in particular, lobbied Switzerland to make sure that it appeals ECHR’s decision in the Perincek case. In reality, the Swiss authorities should not have needed any prodding from Armenians, since they had an obligation to defend the judgments of their own courts, including the Federal Tribunal, and the integrity of their country’s legal system!

The six-page Swiss appeal, filed on March 17, 2014, asserted that ECHR’s ruling raised “serious questions regarding the interpretation and application” of the European Convention on Human Rights for the following three reasons:

– The ruling involves an issue — the Armenian Genocide — that has never been considered by ECHR. This case raises two fundamental juridical questions that the Court has not dealt with: The juridical qualification of the Genocide and the scope of freedom of expression, when a state party to the Convention, in the framework of fighting racism, criminalizes the denial of genocide.

– The ruling reduces in an undue manner “the margin of appreciation” available to Switzerland under the jurisprudence of ECHR. Perincek had repeatedly stated that he would never change his mind on the Armenian Genocide. His denialist position is “particularly offensive.” The Court’s contention that such a person would bring any value to “the debate and historical research” on this issue “is a departure from ECHR’s established and balanced jurisprudence.”

– The ruling creates “artificial distinctions.” Perincek does not simply contest the use of the term genocide, but qualifies the Armenian mass killings as an “international lie.” Furthermore, even though there has not been an international verdict in the case of the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish Court’s 1919 verdict against the masterminds of the Armenian Genocide “constituted an element of reliable evidence, acknowledging the facts or unfavorable conduct” relative to the World Court’s jurisprudence. Furthermore, even “the Nuremberg Tribunal did not mention the term genocide and did not convict the Nazi perpetrators for committing genocide, but crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”

The Swiss appeal has provided compelling arguments and convincing evidence that five of the seven ECHR judges made serious judgmental and factual errors in delivering a ruling in favor of Perincek and against Switzerland.

A panel of five new ECHR judges will now decide whether to refer Switzerland’s appeal to the 17-judge Grand Chamber for a final determination.