Christians in Malaysia are still waiting to get back 5,000 Malay Bibles confiscated by the Home Ministry since 2009 on security grounds despite the Cabinet approving their release.
The long wait has prompted National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF) secretary-general Sam Ang today to ask Christians in Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia to pray for the “unconditional and immediate release” of the 5,000 Alkitab together with other Christian materials as approved by the Cabinet last year.
“Since then, these detained materials have not been released despite the many calls and appeals to the government.
“Though, the Cabinet has approved the release of these materials, yet the Home Ministry’s Publications Control and Quranic Text Division has refused to pay heed to the instructions given,” Ang said in a statement today.
The Malaysian Insider had reported that Christian groups have been given conflicting instructions concerning the release of the Bibles shipped in from Indonesia and seized by Customs officers in March 2009 because they contained the word “Allah”.
The matter is a touchy issue in Malaysia where Islam is the official religion and Muslim officials are against non-Islamic religious books printed in Bahasa Malaysia or containing the word “Allah”, the name of god in the faith which is outlawed for use by other religions.
It is understood that Christian leaders had broached the matter with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak at the Christmas open house last year.
Ang said the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) imported 5,000 Alkitab Berita Baik from Indonesia on March 23, 2009, but the Malay Bibles together with 100 copies of other Christian literature were confiscated and detained by the Home Ministry at Port Klang, and that the BSM had tried to retrieve them for over a year.
BSM’s repeated attempts to clear up the confusion with the ministry helmed by Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein — who oversees the Immigration and Customs departments — at its highest-level of command have been met with sympathy but not action.
Ang also asked the Christians to pray for the freedom to profess and practise their religion in peace without “undue and improper interference” from the state authorities, as well as for the civil service and enforcement authorities to honour the rights of all people as enshrined in the Federal Constitution, and comply with decisions made in accordance with the rule of law and established administrative processes.
There is also a similar incident involving another Christian group, the Gideons, which had its shipment of 10,000 Malay-language Bibles detained in Kuching in 2009; but had the confiscation order lifted after Putrajaya intervened directly.
BSM was reported as saying that it has a strong legal case.
But being a Christian organisation, it is reluctant to take legal action unless forced to, like what the Catholic Church did with its Herald newspaper case.
The group noted that the Court of Appeal’s delay in hearing the controversial “Allah” suit, 15 months after the High Court ruled Christians have a constitution right to use the word, and that it had impacted on its case as well.
