Keren woOoOoOoOoo~

The government doesnt control the peoples belief

-But i deleted it like 5 minutes later. cause well, maluuuu ><

***http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/11/4/nation/20091104132939&sec=nation
***http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/29/malaysia.bibles.seized/index.html

okay. so i’m just gonna copy and paste the content of the links above… and highlight the important lines, ok?

KUALA LUMPUR: The Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM) has called for the immediate release of the 15,000 Bahasa Malaysia Bibles being withheld by the authorities.

It said the seizure contravened Article 11 of the Federal Constitution which gives all Malaysians the right to profess and practise his faith.

“This constitutional right is rendered illusory if Christians in Malaysia are denied access to Bibles in a language with which they are familiar,” said its chairman Bishop Ng Moon Hing and executive committee in a statement Wednesday.

They said withholding the Bibles deprived Christians in Sabah, Sarawak and in the peninsula, a large majority of whom use Bahasa Malaysia, “the right to use the Holy Scriptures in Bahasa Malaysia, to practise and profess their faith and to nourish themselves spiritually.”

They said it was baseless to withhold the Bibles on the ground that they were prejudicial to public order since they had been in existence before independence and had never caused public disorder.

“Since the 1970s and in consonance with the Government’s policies in education and the national language, Christians in Malaysia have received their education in Bahasa Malaysia.

“To deny the same Christians the right to read and study the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia is thus ridiculous and offensive. In fact, it is this action by the authorities themselves which is an affront to good public order.

“We call on the relevant government officials who have neither the authority nor the right to act in this unconscionable manner to explain their action to the church leaders and to the public,**i would like a public apology after all the stuff they’ve done like … urm, break into a church pretending to be christians? ” they said, adding that churches stood to their commitment to Bahasa Malaysia as the national language.

They said the Government had in an agreement in 2005 stated Bahasa Malaysia Bibles could be distributed so long as the symbol of the cross and the words “A Christian publication” were printed on the front page. **so why are they doing this now

They called on the Government to walk the talk of its 1Malaysia policy and not impose conditions on the freedom of citizens to worship, pray and read the Holy Scriptures in Bahasa Malaysia. ** this is super duper um whats the word… hypocritical? walk the talk, ladies and gentlemen of the 1Malaysia creators

that was by The Star.. now CNN

(CNN) — Authorities in Malaysia have seized more than 20,000 Bibles in recent months because they refer to God as "Allah,"** i dont understand this part. um, the bibles refer God as Allah or because the muslims refer God as Allah thats why we cant print bibles that state God as Tuhan? Christian leaders said Thursday.

The seizures have fed fears among minority groups, which see signs of encroaching Islamic fundamentalism in the predominantly Muslim but multi-racial country.

"There is a growing sense of Islamic assertion, yes," said the Rev. Hermen Shastri, general-secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia. "There is some concern."

The Bibles were written in the country’s official language, Malay — in which the word for God is "Allah," as it is in Arabic.

However, Malaysia’s government says the word is exclusive to Islam.

Its use in Christian publications is likely to confuse Muslims and draw them to Christianity, the government says. So it has banned use of the word in Christian literature.

"Malay has borrowed from Arabic, just as it has from Sanskrit and Portuguese," Shastri said. "We have maintained the community has the right to use the word.

"But I think this has ignited a cause in the Muslim communities, who are interpreting it as a siege on Islamic beliefs."

A Home Ministry official directed requests for comment to the ministry’s Publications and Quran Text Control Department, which enforces the ban. An employee there redirected calls to a spokeswoman, who in turn asked CNN to call the Home Ministry back. Calls to other departments were similarly redirected.

A Roman Catholic weekly newspaper, The Herald, is challenging the ban in court after the government threatened to revoke its license for using the word in its Malay edition. Hearings on the case have gone on for two years.

"We quote it as it is. We cannot change the text of the Scripture," Herald editor Father Lawrence Andrew told CNN last year. "I cannot be the editor of the Bible."

Among the Bibles confiscated were Malay-language ones that the Bible Society of Malaysia said it had imported from Indonesia. About 10,000 others also were confiscated from Gideons International, which places free copies in hotel rooms and other places.

The Malaysian constitution provides for freedom of religion. The country has a dual-track justice system, in which Islamic courts operate alongside civil ones.

Rulings by the Islamic, or sharia, courts are directed toward the country’s Muslim, who make up 60 percent of the population. But they worry non-Muslims who see them as Islamism seeping into the moderate nation’s fabric.

In November, the National Fatwa Council — the country’s top Islamic body — banned Muslims from practicing yoga. It said elements of Hinduism in yoga can corrupt Muslims.

The council also bans short hair and boyish behavior for girls, saying they encourage homosexuality.

In northern Malaysia’s Kelantan state, authorities have forbidden bright lipstick and high-heeled shoes, saying the bans will safeguard Muslim women’s morals and dignity, as well as thwart rape.

And last month, an Islamic court judge in the eastern state of Pahang upheld a verdict to cane a Muslim woman for drinking beer in public.

The country has been mired in inter-faith disputes as well in recent months. In those cases, many non-Muslims complain that the civil courts generally cede control to Islamic courts.

Muslims cannot convert to other religions without the permission of the Islamic courts, which rarely approve such requests.

In relationships in which a Muslim parent has converted children to Islam over the objection of a non-Muslim parent, the sharia courts usually have upheld the conversions.

And earlier this year, a Sikh family lost a court battle to cremate a relative after officials said the man had converted to Islam years before his death, though the family said he hadn’t. –> its like they approve of conversion without knowledge of the family