Christians slam Malaysia's failure to prosecute Bible burning advocate

Lack of legal action against Ibrahim Ali sends message that extremists have 'carte blanche' to threaten minority religions.

Ibrahim Ali had called for copies of the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia, using the word ‘Allah’, to be burned

Malaysia:  Malaysia's main Christian group expressed outrage on Thursday over government inaction to prosecute Islamist Ibrahim Ali for his threat to burn Bibles, saying it gave carte blanche to extremists to threaten Christianity and other religions.

"The Christian Federation of Malaysia on behalf of Christians in Malaysia is outraged at the fact that threats to burn our Holy Bible are considered an act in defence of Islam," the CFM said in a statement Thursday. "The CFM feels strongly that this position is irresponsible as it gives carte blanche or free rein to other extremists to do likewise, not just to Christians but to any other religious community that is not Muslim.”

CFM said that by "no logic or rationalisation and under no circumstances whatsoever can a threat or call to violent action, desecration of another Malaysian citizen's sacred text be considered defensive".

The Christian body was responding to the Malaysian government's excuse in not prosecuting Ibrahim over his call last year to burn copies of the Bible containing the word "Allah", saying that Ibrahim, president of the Muslim rights group Perkasa, was merely defending Islam.

Nancy Shukri, minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of law, said in a parliamentary written reply Wednesday that the police concluded that Ibrahim's words were only directed at specific individuals, and not a threat to larger society.

"The statement he made was not intended to cause religious chaos but only to defend the sanctity of Islam," she replied to a question by Bagan MP, Lim Guan Eng, on why Ibrahim had not been charged with sedition.

In response to this justification, Land Development Minister Tan Sri Dr James Masing said “So now it is acceptable to burn the Bibles, insult believers of other faiths and do disrespectful acts in defence of the sanctity of Islam.”

“How did Malaysia arrive at this socio-religious situation?” Masing said, adding that the country’s “founding fathers would turn in their graves if they found out what is happening to Malaysia today”.

Ibrahim's call in January last year prompted outrage from politicians and Christian groups, with critics accusing the government of double-standards in using the Sedition Act against only those who criticized the government while sparing Ibrahim over his remarks.

Source: The Malaysian Insider