BY KAMARUL AZMAN
KUALA
LUMPUR, The Pakatan Rakyat Selangor government returned today the Christian
bibles containing the word “Allah” to the Bible Society of Malaysia confiscated
by its state Islamic enforcers in January.
Selangor
Mentri Besar Azmin Ali was pictured giving back the Malay and Iban-language
bibles to the Christian bookstore at Istana Alam Shah in Klang earlier this
morning.
“An
amicable resolution to the issue of the seizure of the Malaysia Language Bibles
containing the word Allah,” Azmin tweeted from his @AzminAli account, attaching
a photograph of the ceremony.
Using a
1988 Selangor state law that prohibits non-Muslims from using “Allah” to refer
to God, the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) carried out a surprise
raid of BSM’s Selangor office on January 2, and seized over 300 copies of the
bible in Malay and Iban.
After
months of waiting for the bibles’ release, the BSM’s then president Lee Min
Choon said in April that BSM would move its headquarters to the federal
government-ruled Kuala Lumpur to get “better protection” and avoid future bible
seizures.
The new
BSM president Bishop Datuk Moon Hing told The Sabah Insider.Net Online last
month that the society had not decided to move its office out of Selangor.
The
Attorney-General said last June that the bibles, which were seized during Tan
Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s administration, were not controlled items and did not
constitute a national security issue.
Despite
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Cabinet issuing a 10-point solution in
2011 that allowed the distribution of Christian bibles in the Malay, Indonesian
and indigenous languages, a Sabahan Christian’s religious compact discs (CDs)
and books were confiscated last month at the second Kuala Lumpur International
Airport (klia2).
After the
Christian materials were returned to the Sabahan last week, Minister in the
Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Joseph Kurup said Putrajaya will draw up
new guidelines to ensure Christian materials destined for Sabah and Sarawak are
no longer wrongfully seized.
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