SHAH ALAM, June 4 — The Selangor government will give the Attorney-General (AG) another month to decide whether to return the 300 Malay bibles seized in January to the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) before it intervenes on the matter, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim said today.

 

The Selangor Mentri Besar said it has been six months since the issue was referred to the office of the country’s top lawyer but the state has yet to receive a response.

“We are still waiting for the Attorney-General’s office to resolve the matter...but we have given them a target date.

“It has been six months...(giving them) one more month is a tolerable time,” he told reporters here.

The Selangor Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Among Muslims) Enactment 1988 passed by the then-Barisan Nasional (BN) state government prohibits non-Muslims in Selangor from using 35 Arabic words and phrases in their faith, including “Allah” (God), “Nabi” (prophet) and “Injil” (gospel).

The law was used by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) on January 2 when it sent a team of 20 religious officials and police officers to raid the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM)’s Selangor office, where over 300 copies of the Malay-language and Iban-language bibles containing the word “Allah” were seized.

MB Khalid had previously said the state government will not interfere in the ongoing controversy over the seized bibles, saying that it is up to BSM to officially write to AG Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail to have the holy books returned.

Selangor executive councillor Elizabeth Wong later said she had written to the AG on April 4 on behalf of the state government, asking him to order Jais to return the bibles.

Abdul Gani has not made an official statement on the matter.

BSM said in April it will move its headquarters to the federal government-ruled Kuala Lumpur to get “better protection” and avoid future bible seizures by religious authorities.

BSM said it will also stop importing bibles through Selangor’s Port Klang.

It said it will send the bibles through Penang or directly to east Malaysia where most of its Christian readers of the Malay-language bibles live.