Malaysia Starts Lunar New Year with Bounty on Rats…and Christians

Julia Gorin updates Muslim anti-Christian activity in Malaysia, often touted as a progressive, "secular" society. Well, Islam's idea of secularism and the West's idea if secularism are a bit different. Here are a few recent examples of Malaysian government suppression of Christians.

FROM POLITICALMAVINS.COM:

Malaysia Starts Lunar New Year with Bounty on Rats…and Christians
By Julia Gorin
(bio)

From Reuters
(Feb. 9):
Authorities in Malaysia’s capital have ushered in the Year of the Rat by offering a bounty on rats to help fight the city’s age-old rodent problem, a newspaper said on Saturday.
“There’s no incentive like money,” Yew Teong Look, a member of parliament for a Kuala Lumpur precinct, was quoted by the New Straits Times as saying. Dead or alive, the rats are worth 2 ringgit (31 pence) each, he said. “All residents have to do is place the vermin at drop-off points where City Hall officers will collect them for disposal,” he said.
Avoiding traps, the fast-breeding mammals are found in many of the city’s homes, shops and markets, despite efforts by the city authorities to contain the problem and clean up the city.
Malaysia, with a large ethnic Chinese minority, is one of a number of countries across Asia that have just celebrated the Lunar New Year. The Year of the Rat — one of the 12 animals in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac — began on Thursday.

Malaysia seizes Christian books
(Jan.22)
Malaysian authorities confiscated Christian children’s books, claiming the illustrations of prophets such as Moses and Abraham violate Islamic Shariah law.
…
Christians, Hindus and other religious groups in Malaysia say they are increasingly being targeted as the nation gradually cedes jurisdiction to Shariah courts.
The U.S. State Department estimates that about 60 percent of Malaysians are Muslim, with the remainder being Christians, Buddhists, Hindus or belonging to other sects.
The books confiscated from Johor Bahru, Senawang and Ipoh offended the sensibilities of Muslims, officials say, because Islam forbids the depiction of prophets.
…
The books were confiscated by officials from the Publications and Koran Texts Control Department, a division of the Internal Security Ministry headed by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.
The prime minister is an Islamic scholar who promotes the concept of “Islam Hadhari” or “Islamic Civilization.”
Bernama, the Malaysian National News Agency, reported last week that Mr. Badawi stated the West should acknowledge there are civilizations today that continue to uphold religious values in the public sphere, even if many Western governments and societies do not.
In remarks to a forum in Madrid called the Alliance of Civilization, he also said Islam is a religion that respects religious and cultural diversity.
The Malaysian government last month also banned the use of the name “Allah” in any religion other than Islam, local press reports said.
…
A string of prominent religious conversion cases recently has been criticized for granting special privileges to Muslims in the multiethnic and ostensibly secular nation.
Article 3 of the Federal Constitution states the official religion of Malaysia is Islam, but Article 11 protects the right to religious freedom…

Malaysian airport customs seize Bibles
(Feb. 4):
Malaysian customs officials seized 32 Bibles from a traveler, a church federation said Monday, adding its voice to a raft of complaints that the Muslim-majority country is becoming less tolerant of other religions.
The Royal Malaysian Customs department, however, said it was only trying to determine if the Bibles were imported for commercial purposes.
Custom officials at an airport in Kuala Lumpur took the Bibles from a Malaysian woman Jan. 28 on her return from the Philippines, according to the Rev. Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia. She was carrying the Bibles for a study group, he said.
The woman was told that all religious materials had to be sent to the Internal Security Ministry’s publications control unit for clearance, Shastri said, adding that he had never before heard of anyone being told to do this when bringing English-language Bibles into the country.
…
Indians have also been enraged that their Hindu temples have been demolished by state authorities. Many legal disputes involving Muslims and non-Muslims have been ruled in favor of Muslims…[Prime Minister] Abdullah [Ahmad Badawi] has been criticized for not reining in the Islamization process, which is threatening to tear the carefully nurtured racial peace in this multiethnic society.