30,000 copies of the New Testament, the Book of Psalms and the Book of Proverbs are currently being withheld, according to MKF.
"This has happened despite the fact that the government, in its attempt to justify its stance against the use of the word 'Allah' in Alkitab (the Bible in Malay), has assured Christians that the Bible will be freely available in Bahasa Malaysia, the Malay language, at least in the provinces of Sabah and Sarawak," MKF said.
"Since March 2009, all attempts to import the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia have been prevented no matter which port was used, Klang or Kuching. A previous shipment of 5,000 copies of the Alkitab imported in March 2009 is still being detained by the Ministry of Home Affairs in the port city of Klang. This is despite repeated appeals which resulted in the Prime Minister deciding to release these Bibles in December 2009, which was reported to MKF leaders by several cabinet ministers and their secretaries. In absolute contradiction to this decision, the 5,000 copies of Alkitab remain withheld.
When the Prime Minister was told this at a special event at Christmas last year, he expressed surprise that the order for the release of the Bibles in Port Klang had not been carried out. Yet nothing has been done by the authorities to secure their release," said MKF Executive Committee Chairman Bishop Ng Moon Hing in a statement.
"Before March 2009, there were several instances of Bibles in Malay being detained. Each time, painstaking steps had to be taken to secure release. It would appear that the authorities are running a sustained, unnoticeable and systematic program against Christians in Malaysia to deny them access to the Bible in Malay.
Malaysian Christians, many of whom have grown up with Bahasa Malaysia as their main language of communication as a result of government education policies, must be able to access the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia in order to read, understand and practice their faith.
Religious freedom, guaranteed as one of the fundamental freedoms under our federal constitution, is meaningless if followers of a religion are denied access to their religious texts in a language they can understand," said Bishop Ng.
"As an immediate step, we insist that all Bibles that have been detained be released immediately," the bishop concluded.
Source: ucanews.com/Christian Federation of Malaysia Media Release
