DOCUMENTS that were used by the cabinet in 1986 to support a ban on the usage of the word “Allah” in non-Islamic publications will remain classified, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled today. 

The court rejected the application for discovery from the Sidang Injil Borneo church to compel the government to disclose documents upon which it based its argument for Muslims’ exclusive usage of the word.

The government had said then that usage of “Allah” by non-Muslims would cause confusion and pose a national security threat. Dr Mahathir Mohamad was prime minister at the time.

Justice Nor Bee Arifin today dismissed the SIB and its Sabah division president Jerry Dusing’s application to have the documents produced in court, ruling that the document were classified under Official Secrets Act (OSA) 1972. 

Outside the court, senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan, representing the Home Ministry, told reporters that the court was not in a position to tell the government to declassify the documents. 

SIB’s counsel Annou Xavier argued that under the Evidence Act, the documents could be produced for evaluation, whether or not they be a threat to national security.

“We just want to know which documents they said caused confusion and were security issues,” Xavier said when contacted today.

“We feel there was no issue of security. If there were issues, we want the government to (declassify) the (related) material under OSA. We want to know why the documents cannot be disclosed.”

The court set November 1 for case management to set a proceeding date.

SIB and Dusing have filed a judicial review to challenge a seizure in religious books in 2007 from Indonesia containing the word “Allah”.

Three boxes of Bahasa Malaysia-language Christian educational books that contained the word “Allah” were seized by the Customs Department at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal in Sepang in August that year.

The books were returned to SIB in January 2008.

SIB, however, is seeking a declaration that it has the constitutional right to use the word in publications and for educational purposes.

The home minister has previously refused the importation of four titles of the publications.

Dusing said in his discovery application that East Malaysian Christians had been using the word “Allah” in their songs, sermons, and prayers for hundreds of years and that the ban had led to recurring problems for Bahasa Malaysia-speaking Christians.  

SIB and Dusing were granted leave to commence a judicial review in 2014. – October 16, 2017.