Malaysian PM urges Muslims to respect other religions

September 21st, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - The war of words between former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Malaysian Indian Congress President S. Samy Vellu seems to have been doused.

September 8th, 2009 NEVADA - Hindus have applauded Catholic Archdiocese of Malta for documenting that students should "learn from the beauty and goodness of other faith traditions". According to Constitution of Malta (Chapter I, Article 2, Item 3): "Religious teaching of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Faith shall be provided in all State schools as part of compulsory education." American Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, commended Malta Archdiocese for stressing in the document titled "Religious Education in Malta" that "it is of utmost importance that students" should be "knowledgeable of other religions".

September 5th, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak Saturday quoted from the Quran to urge fellow Muslims not to insult people of other faiths, after residents of a Muslim-majority area, protesting re-location of a Hindu temple to their locality, carried cow heads in a rally Friday. Residents of Section 23 locality in Shah Alam, capital of Selangor state, staged a protest rally against relocation of a 150-year-old Sri Mariamman temple from Section 19 to their Muslim Malay-majority area.

July 15th, 2009 Malaysia arrests 9 Christians on conversion claimKUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian police have arrested nine Christians accused of trying to convert Muslim university students — a serious crime punishable by prison in this Muslim-majority country, a lawyer said Wednesday. The suspects have denied the allegation, which could aggravate complaints by religious minorities that authorities are increasingly ignoring their rights in favor of Islam.

July 14th, 2009 2 Malaysian Muslims stir anger with church articleKUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian authorities are investigating two Muslims who sparked complaints after they pretended to be Christians and took communion at a church service to research a magazine article, officials said Tuesday. The investigation poses a fresh challenge for the government in its efforts to reduce religious friction in this ethnic Malay Muslim-majority country, where religious minorities have complained that their rights are being sidelined in favor of Islam.

July 2nd, 2009 ASTANA - Tensions exist between India's Muslims and Hindus because the two communities do not know enough about each other, an Indian delegate at the global faith conference here contended Thursday. "Yes, tensions do exist but they exist because Muslims and Hindus don't know about each other," Zafar Yunus Sareshwala, the CEO of Mumbai Stock Exchange-listed financial services provider Parsoli Corporation, maintained during the plenary on "Solidarity specially in the period of crisis", on the concluding day of the third Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions here.

July 1st, 2009 ASTANA - India is a very important player in the two-day global conference of faiths and civilisations that opened in this Kazakh capital Wednesday, a top diplomat says. "India is a very important country (for the meet).

June 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Farah Pandith, a Kashmiri-origin woman, has been appointed as special representative to Muslim communities in the US State Department. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has appointed Pandith as in charge of a new office that is responsible for outreach with Muslims around the world, according to a notice of the State Department.

June 4th, 2009 CAIRO - "Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of another's," US President Barack Obama told the world's 1.5 billion Muslims in a speech from Cairo Thursday. "The richness of religious diversity must be upheld - whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt.

May 15th, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - Temples in Malaysia should be used to unite the Malay Indian community, the Tamil Nesan quoted Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) secretary-general Dr. S. Subramaniam, as saying.

May 1st, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian Indian Congress Youth (MICY), which handles 10 to 15 cases of conversion a month, has urged the Government to set up a special non-Islamic affairs department to handle the problems arising from non-Muslims converting to Islam. The Star quoted MICY coordinator, T.

April 25th, 2009 Malaysian fighting kids' conversion gets custodyKUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A Malaysian Hindu woman who is fighting her husband's conversion of their three youngsters to Islam has regained custody of the children — a day after the government decided it would no longer allow disputed conversions of minors, a lawyer said Saturday. A high court in northern Perak state granted Indira Ghandhi custody of her children, aged between 1 and 12, on Friday, her lawyer M.

April 23rd, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - The Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) has asked the Malaysian Government to reserve at least 25 percent of the 100 million units of the free Amanah Saham Wawasan (ASW 2020) shares for the Indians to realise the community's 1.5 percent equity participation target, as outlined in the Ninth Malaysia Plan, by next year. In a front page report, the Tamil Nesan daily quotes MIC president S.

March 12th, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar has said that Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) chairman P. Waythamoorthy, whose passport has been revoked by the Malaysian Government, is free to return home.

January 8th, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR - Differences have cropped up in Pakatan Rakyat (PR), Malaysia's opposition alliance, over the desirability of introducing Islamic laws in a multi-religious society, with one of its ethnic Indian leaders opposing it. Lawyer-lawmaker Karpal Singh, chairman of Democratic Action Party (DAP), one of the PR constituents, has lashed out at the alliance chief Anwar Ibrahim, saying his assertion that Islamic hudud laws apply only to Muslims 'is a fallacy', The Star newspaper reported Friday.