Malaysia: 15,100 Bahasa Indonesia Bibles Confiscated This Year

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009 Posted: 12:37:38AM HKT

The Malaysian government has confiscated more than 15,000 copies of Scripture in Bahasa Indonesia so far this year, a report noted.

On September 11, a Gideons International consignment of 5,000 Indonesian Testaments and 5,000 Indonesian/English bilingual Testaments sent by Alpha Publisher from Jakarta to Kuching was confiscated by the Malaysian Home Affairs Ministry (Publication).

Earlier this year in March, 5,100 Bibles in Bahasa Indonesia ordered by the Bible Society of Malaysia were confiscated by the ministry, the Catholic newspaper The Herald reported.

The reason for the confiscation was that they contained the banned words: Allah, Kaabah, Baitumal and Solat.

In response, the Borneo Evangelical Church had written an appeal letter dated September 17 to the Home Affairs Ministry in Putrajaya for the release of the consignment.

“We are now waiting for the answer of the appeal,” said Low Boon Leong, Malaysia’s National Field Officer of The Gideons International.

Low added that his ministry has to pay for the warehouse charges which cost a ‘fair’ sum of money even as the books have been confiscated and that if the appeal is unsuccessful it has to return the consignment to the publisher in Jakarta.

On its part, the Bible Society of Malaysia has been asking people to pray and has written an appeal letter which will be delivered by hand to the Prime Minister by representatives of the Christian Council of Malaysia (CCM) and the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM), said The Rev Wong, a representative.

In the letter, he highlighted the high demand for Bibles in Bahasa Indonesia and appealed to the ministry to release them as soon as possible.

The CCM is also following up on its appeal to the government to release the Scriptures.

In officially Islamic Malaysia, public opinion on whether the Bible in the Indonesian and Malay languages should be banned is polarised.

Christian groups argue that there is no closer translation from the original Hebrew than ‘Allah’ since both the Arabic and Hebrew word for God originate from the same Semitic root.

In a dispute between a government minister and Christian leader in April 2005, the Prime Minister clarified that there was no ban on Bibles translated into Malay, but they must be stamped with the disclaimer ‘Not for Muslims’.

The National Evangelical Christian Fellowship secretary-general had said that the minister’s remarks that Bibles in Bahasa Malaysia or Bahasa Indonesia should be banned were “inconsistent with the sprit and the letter of [the] Constitution, which upholds religious freedom for everyone”. He added that the policy was unfair to non-English-speaking Christians, reported The Star.

Other Christian materials in the Malay language have also been banned at various times in the past.

Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com