Day: March 16, 2011

By Debra Chong
The Malaysian Insider
Mar 16, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — The Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) was told today that its shipment of 5,100 Malay bibles seized at Port Klang had already been stamped with the home ministry’s official seal without its prior permission.

“At 5pm today, KDN informed Bible Society of Malaysia that they had already chopped the bibles and asked Bible Society of Malaysia to come collect the bibles,” the importer said in a statement to The Malaysian Insider, calling the home ministry by its Malay initials.

“Bible Society of Malaysia is alarmed by the defacement of the Christian bible by non-Christians chopping it with words that the Christians have not accepted or agreed to,” it added.

The BSM had earlier today refused to collect its cargo of holy books that had been detained for the last two years after the home ministry imposed two conditions for their release.

The society was stunned that home ministry officials had moved to act on their own and only notified BSM after the act, and called on the ministry to immediately put a stop to it. Continue reading “Alkitab defaced, says Bible Society”

I was in Sabah last week and I was surprised that the former Suhakam Vice Chairman and former Sabah State Secretary Tan Sri Simon Sipaun had been the target of attacks by Sabah for his recent statement that “life in Sabah before in Malaysia was very pleasant and good”.

This is what Sipaun had said recently:

“Life in Sabah, in those days called North Borneo, as I remember it, before Malaysia, was very pleasant and good, to say the least. Admittedly there was no development that we see today, but even Malaya at that time was no better. There was no racial problem, mixed marriages were very common, and that is why we have so many peranakan in Sabah. If Sabahans are now conscious of racial and religious divide, it has been imported from semananjung. There was no illegal immigrant, there were no cases of Sabahans losing citizenship status while foreigners get it without much difficulty. There were no repressive and draconian laws, such as Official Secrets Act; … the Printing Presses and Publications Act, the Seditious Act, the Police Act, and the four Proclamations of Emergency; we are still under emergency as of today even though the conditions for having emergency proclamation is no longer there. There was no quarrelling over dead bodies, the composition, and I spent three years of my career in the civil service before Malaysia, the composition in those days of the civil service was reflective of the racial makeup of society. It was multi-racial, meritocracy was practised. Corruption and ketuanan Melyau, we never heard of it. And the thing continues. How not to miss Sabah before Malaysia.”

Continue reading “Call for a RCI headed by Simon Sipaun to inquire into expectations, hopes and dreams of Sabahans and Sarawakians half a century after formation of Malaysia”

While the government’s decision yesterday to release the 35,000 copies of Bahasa Malaysia Bible detained in Port Klang and Kuching Port is to be welcomed, questions must be raised as to why it had been allowed to become an issue aggravating Malaysian unity and nation-building problems for such a length of time.

The country seems suddenly to have a very powerful Minister, who is not elected but appointed – Senator Datuk Seri Idris Jala. Is this really the case?

The announcement was not made by the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein or the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who had earlier commented on the issue, but by an unelected Senator Minister. Why was this the case?

In fact, six hours before Idris’ announcement, Muhyiddin had announced that the Cabinet had not made any decision to release the 35,000 Bahasa Malaysia Bibles and that this subject would be discussed in the Cabinet meeting on Friday.
Continue reading “Call on Cabinet on Friday to withdraw the appeal against the KL High Court judgment on the Herald “Allah” case to demonstrate government seriousness and commitment to promote 1Malaysia and inter-religious harmony”