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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________Malaysia_______________
Church sues for building permit
Forcing government to pay attention
The Catholic Church in Malaysia has filed a lawsuit to receive permission to build a new church, despite repeated denials by a state government.
The parish in the state capital of Shah Alam has sought to build a new church for 10 years, with the Selangor state government changing its mind three times. In December, Selangor asked the parish building committee to consider a new site in an industrial park more than a mile from the location it had already approved. The chairman of the building committee, J.V. Rao, said the parish had already spent more than $13,000 to prepare the old site. He said that the legal challenge to the latest administrative decision was an effort to secure the rights of the 5,000 Catholics in the area, or at a minimum to force the state authorities to make a clear final decision on the project. As Rao put it, after filing the suit, Catholics are “hoping that it will at least make the government respond.”
Malaysia’s official religion is Islam. Members of other faiths—mostly Buddhists, Christians, and Hindus—have enjoyed freedom of religion in recent years. But those non-Muslims now show concern about growing pressure to restrict their activities.