Malaysian premier Najib Razak Thursday met church leaders in a bid to ease religious tensions stirred by a report that minority Christians wanted to replace Islam as the official religion. Church leaders have angrily denounced the report, which ran in the government-linked newspaper Utusan Malaysia on Saturday, describing it as “baseless and highly irresponsible”. Council of Churches of Malaysia president, Bishop Thomas Tsen, said the meeting with Najib helped defuse tensions.
“We had a very good session and good exchange,” Tsen told AFP. “It was a very good start.” Religion and language are sensitive issues in multi-racial Malaysia, which was hit by deadly race riots in 1969.
Utusan Malaysia’s front-page story headlined “Christianity, official religion?” reported allegations by bloggers that church leaders had prayed during a meeting attended by opposition leaders for a Christian prime minister and for Christianity to become the official religion. Tsen said church leaders were “disturbed” by the report and denied there had been any such prayers.