KDN’s ban on Herald unreasonable

The home affairs ministry (KDN) decision to ban the Catholic daily’s Herald publication in Bahasa Malaysia has been criticized and condemned as being unjust and does not reflect the federal government’s recognition on its local religious activities.

Instead, the KDN approval only allows the Herald to publish its articles in English, Chinese and Tamil. According to the editor of the Herald publication, the editorial is considering a possible legal action against the federal government and the ministry should these issues remain unresolved till then.

Can we imagine how ashamed we are for being disallowed to use our own national language if this were to make known to other people of different countries and region? The federal government’s move to ban the usage of Bahasa Malaysia in the Herald publication is a direct implication that the authorities were afraid of the so-called “conversion” onto the dominant community of this nation which might be carried out by the said Catholic daily.

In our federal constitution, the freedom of multi religious practice are guaranteed but in somehow restricted by the fact that to protect one religion which wanted to remain dominant and in control of the other religions. Is this really fair anyway?