KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia
— Christian importers of Bibles that Malaysian officials detained are balking
at conditions the government has imposed for their release, such as defacement
of the sacred books with official stamps.
The Home Ministry stamped the words, “This Good News (Malay) Bible is for use
by Christians only” on 5,100 Bibles without consulting the importer, the Bible
Society of Malaysia (BSM), which initially refused to collect them as it had
neither accepted nor agreed to the conditions. The Home Ministry applied the
stamp a day after the government on March 15 issued a release order for the
Bibles, which had been detained since March 20, 2009.
Another 30,000 Bibles detained since Jan. 12 on the island of Borneo remain in
port after the Sarawak state Home Ministry told the local chapter of Gideons
International that it could collect them if the organization would put the
stamp on them. Gideons has thus far declined to do so, and a spokesman said
April 5 that officials had already defaced the books with the stamp.
The government issued letters of release to both organizations on March 15
under the condition that the books bear the stamp, “Reminder: This Good News (Malay)
Bible is for use by Christians only. By order of the Home Minister,” and that
the covers must carry a serial number, the official seal of the department and
a date.
The Home Ministry’s stamping of the BSM Bibles without the organization’s
permission came under fire from the Christian community. In a statement issued
March 17, Bishop Ng Moon Hing, chairman of the Christian Federation of Malaysia
(CFM), described the Home Ministry’s action as desecration.
“(The) new conditions imposed on the release of the impounded Bibles … is
wholly unacceptable to us,” he added.
Ng described the conditions imposed by the Home Ministry as tantamount to
treating the Malay Bible as a “restricted item” and subjecting the word of God
to the control of man. In response, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein has said
the act of stamping and serialization was standard protocol.
Government overtures
In the weeks following the March 15 release order, the government made several
attempts to try to appease the Christian community through Idris Jala, a
Christian from Sarawak state and a minister in the Prime Minister’s department.
Idris issued the government’s first statement March 22, explaining that
officials had reduced earlier conditions imposed by the Home Ministry to
require only the words, “For Christianity” to be stamped on the covers of the
Bible in font type Arial, size 16, in bold.
Idris informed BSM that the Bibles could be collected in their present state or
arrangements could be made to have stickers with the words “For Christianity”
pasted over the imprint of the stamps made by the Home Ministry officials. In
the event that this was not acceptable, the minister pointed out that BSM had
the option of having the whole consignment replaced, since the government had
received an offer from Christian donors who were prepared to bear the full cost
of purchasing new Bibles.
In response, the CFM issued a statement on March 30 saying, “The offer made
does address the substantive issues,” and called on the government “to remove
every impediment, whether legal or administrative, to the importation,
publication, distribution and use of the (Malay Bible) and indeed to protect
and defend our right to use the (Malay Bible).”
Bishop Ng, however, left it to the two importers to decide whether to collect
the Bibles based on their specific circumstances.
On March 31, BSM collected the mishandled Bibles “to prevent the possibility of
further acts of desecration or disrespect.” In a press statement, BSM officials
explained that the copies cannot be sold but “will be respectfully preserved as
museum pieces and as a heritage for the Christian Church in Malaysia.” The
organization also made it clear that it will only accept compensation from the
Home Ministry and not from “Christian donors,” a term it viewed suspiciously.
On April 2, Idris issued a 10-point statement to try to resolve the impasse.
Significantly, this latest overture by the government included the lifting of
present restrictions to allow for the local printing and importation of Malay
and other indigenous-language Bibles into the country.
In Sarawak and Sabah, there would be no conditions attached to Bibles printed
locally or imported. There also would be no prohibitions and restrictions on
residents of these two states carrying such Bibles to other states. A
significant 64 percent of Malaysian Christians are indigenous people from Sabah
and Sarawak states who use the Malay language in their daily life, and having
the Bible in the Malay language is considered critical to the practice of their
Christian faith.
In the case of West Malaysia, however, in view of its larger Muslim population,
the government imposed the condition that the Bibles must have the words “Christian
publication” and the sign of the cross printed on the front covers.
The issue with the Malay Bibles is closely tied to the dispute over use of the
word “Allah” by non-Muslims.
In a controversial court ruling on Dec.
31, 2009, judge Lau Bee Lan had allowed The Herald, a Catholic newspaper, to use “Allah” for God in the
Malay section of its multilingual newspaper.
The Home Ministry filed an appeal against this decision on Jan. 4, 2010. To
date, there is no indication as to when the case will be heard.
Christians make up more than 9 percent of Malaysia’s nearly 28 million people,
according to Operation World.
(SPECIAL NOTE — Thank you for your continued support of the Biblical
Recorder site. During this interim period while we are searching for a new
Editor/President the comments section will be temporarily discontinued. Thank
you for your understanding and patience in this. If you do have comments or
issues with items we run, please contact [email protected]
or call 919-847-2127.)