KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 — Accused of proselytising to Muslims, an evangelical church said the Malay-language banners promoting its coming Easter musical was a requirement set by the Seremban city council.

Tan Szet Anne, an assistant pastor with the Agape Community Church in the Negri Sembilan capital, added that the pageant to mark the Christian celebration this Sunday would be conducted in English and not Malay as alleged by Muslim activist group, Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (ISMA).

“The bunting was done in accordance with city council regulation which requires it to be in BM,” Tan told The Malay Mail Online, using the initials for the national language, Bahasa Malaysia.

While the law also allows advertisements in other languages, she said the city council insisted on translations in the national language, which must be prominently displayed on the banner.

Checks on the city council website showed the regulation to be fundamental to the approval of permits to advertise in Seremban.

“Words on the banner/bunting must be in Bahasa Malaysia. If translations are to be made in any other language, they cannot be bigger than half the font size in Bahasa Malaysia and the words must be correctly spelled,” it stated.

In an article on ISMA's website on Monday, the Muslim group claimed the Agape Community Church was seeking to convert Muslims to Christianity by holding a free musical on Easter in the Malay language.

The head of ISMA's Seremban chapter, Zamani Ibrahim said that while freedom of religion for non-Muslims was guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, the open use of the national language to promote the event beyond the church compound was an abuse of this liberty.

Accompanying the article was a photograph of a banner announcing the pageant scheduled for April 18-20. It was written in Bahasa Malaysia.

Tan declined to comment on the group's accusations, only saying she was baffled.

“We have always conducted the pageant in English, I think for the past 20 years or so... I’m not sure why they would accuse us of that,” Tan said.

She also said she did not see any malicious intent on ISMA's part, saying the group must have their own reasons for making the baseless claims.

The church would not be deterred from holding its musical this weekend, she said.

“We will go ahead with the pageant as we did not violate any laws, we will get the permit and go ahead,” she said.

ISMA’s complaint is an escalation of the Christian-Muslim tussle here over the Arabic word for God, Allah, which remains unresolved over four years after the Catholic Church here won a legal battle to use the word in its weekly newspaper.

The matter remains in abeyance after the Federal Court last month postponed hearing the case indefinitely.

ISMA’s latest allegation also appears to be a broadening of unsubstantiated Muslim claims of proselytisation towards its followers that was so far premised on the Christian use of specific Arabic words and phrases, notably “Allah”, the Arabic word for God.

All states in Malaysia other than Sabah, Sarawak, Penang and the Federal Territories have enactments that prohibit non-Muslims from using up to 35 Arabic words, but the restriction is specific to proselytisation of Muslims.

Any attempt to promote religions other than Islam to Muslims is illegal in the country, despite the constitutional article guaranteeing religious freedom.

Although allegations against Christians for proselyting to Muslims are frequent, it is unclear if any group or individual has been prosecuted for such.