KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 10 - Calling it “a difficult weekend for all”, Datuk Seri Najib Razak (pic) tweeted tonight to call on Malaysians to remain united in the face of a spate of attacks on Christian churches and a school.
The prime minister has taken pains to say the attacks do not represent the majority of Muslims outraged at a High Court ruling allowing Catholic weekly Herald to use “Allah” to describe the Christian God in its national language edition.
“It’s been a difficult weekend for all. I share your outrage. We must stand united & not allow these incidents to break us,” Najib said in his microblog twitter.com account @NajibRazak.
He also tagged it in the trending topic #churcharson and cross-posted it in his social networking Facebook account.
Najib has pledged his government will go all out to stop the attacks and ensure security for houses of worship in multi-racial Malaysia.
Police have posted men outside churches but appealed to church officials to hire their own security, citing “a lack of police personnel”.
The government has also promised RM500,000 to the Metro Tabernacle Church in Desa Melawati, the first and worst hit in the attacks that began early Friday.
The attacks were initially confined to a total of four churches in the Klang Valley but last night spread to Taiping and today in Malacca town and Miri in Sarawak.
All were arson or attempted arson cases, except Malacca where the church was smeared with black paint and in Miri, where a stone was thrown at the church.
All were against churches of various denominations and a Taiping convent school located next to a Catholic church.
A brick was also thrown at a surau in Kampung Jawa, Klang.
The government will brief foreign envoys tomorrow on the latest situation as it seeks to contain the impact of the attacks which has been widely reported around the world.
It has also appealed against the ruling while seeking to have private inter-faith dialogue to solve the touchy issue.
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