Pembela spokesman Dr Yusri Mohamad accused Christians in Malaysia of harbouring a hidden agenda
An umbrella coalition of Muslim groups held a protest today and declared they were willing to shed blood against ‘extremist’ Christians that insult and ridicule the position of Islam in the country.
The Muslim Organisations in Defence of Islam (Pembela), comprising 20 groups, protested after Friday prayers at the National Mosque against Putrajaya’s release of Malay-language bibles and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s promise to never impound the Alkitab again.
A group of 30 men dressed in white shirts and skullcaps gathered at the main entrance of the mosque after prayers with placards saying “Allah is great! We Ansarullah (helpers of Allah) are watching you!”
Group spokesman Dr Yusri Mohamad said that the Christians are beginning to challenge and dismantle the status and sovereignty of Islam as the state religion.
“Pembela found that statements and actions (by Christian groups) are made to further challenge the sovereignty of Islam. This is not acceptable to Pembela because it implies that there is a larger agenda to be achieved by this group apart from the bible issues alone.
“Pembela believe that despite the bible issue there is a hidden mission to open the Muslim community in Malaysia to apostasy, or at least inject religious pluralism, secularism and extreme-liberalism which can erode the integrity and identity of Muslims in Malaysia,” he said while addressing a crowd of over 50 over a loudhailer.
Yusri also asked Christian groups to stop their confrontational approach and to apologise to Muslims for wounding the community.
He stressed that all Muslim leaders regardless of political affiliation should not mortgage Islam because it will undermine the country’s nation-building process.
“We are also not comfortable with the approach of allowing non-Muslim leaders to become spokesmen for the government and the opposition in this issue because this involves Islam and Muslim leaders must step forward to address this issue.
“We ask all Muslim leaders to unite against extremist Christians that challenge and insult Islam,” he said.
Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia’s (ISMA) secretary-general, Aminuddin Yahaya, added that that country has been soiled by foreign elements.
“Malaysia was tanah melayu, tanah Islam. But when British colonialists came to our land, they also brought Christianity with them.
“We are being taken over by colonialists through their demands once again. We must unite and not compromise with those that insult our religion. We are willing to die for Islam and our country!” he said.
The Muslim coalition also reiterated its threat to challenge Putrajaya’s 10-point solution to the bibles row in court.
However the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) said yesterday it was unconvinced with the Najib administration’s 10-point solution to the Alkitab row, calling it “ad hoc and short term” and pointing out that it still did not address the impasse over the use of the word “Allah”.
CFM president Ng Moon Hing said while the 10-point solution had dealt with the impounding of the Alkitab, it had failed to address the root cause of Christian discontent — the prohibition of publications containing the word “Allah”.
The government is still locked in a legal dispute with the Catholic Church over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims to refer to God, as Islamic enactments in 10 states prohibit this practice.
With the Sarawak polls looming tomorrow, the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration had sought to pacify the Christian community by ordering the release of the holy books, and later drafting the 10-point solution early this month to resolve all future disputes in the matter.
The solution, however, stipulates two separate sets of rules for Christians living on either side of the South China Sea.
For those in the east Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, the distribution and printing of such books have been allowed, due to the large Christian community.
Sarawak is home to the country’s largest Christian population.
But the Cabinet insists that Malay-language bibles in the peninsula be marked with a cross and the words “Christian Publication” on the front cover.
