The Penang CM thanks police and the Seberang Perai Municipal Council for preventing Sunday’s Bible burning.
GEORGE TOWN: Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has called on the Federal Government to come down hard on any person or group threatening to desecrate the holy books of any religion.
Writing in his blog today, Lim said he feared that Putrajaya’s failure to deal with extremists would serve to encourage such acts of sacrilege.
He expressed relief that a planned Bible burning programme in Butterworth last Sunday had failed to take place.
He congratulated the police and the Seberang Perai Municipal Council, saying they had managed to scare off extremists from executing their plan.
Lim was referring to flyers discovered in Penang last week that invited Muslims to a “Bible burning festival” at the Butterworth municipal field.
This followed a Jan 19 call by Perkasa chief Ibrahim Ali on Muslims to seize and burn Bibles that refer to God as “Allah” or use Arabic for religious terms.
Lim denounced Perkasa for the call and criticised the Federal Government for its failure to rein in the Malay rights group.
He urged Putrajaya to be firm against religious extremism.
“Time has come for BN government to take strong action to ensure that no one threatens any holy books,” he said.
He alleged that Umno’s backing gave Perkasa virtual immunity against prosecution and the freedom to insult non-Muslims and deprive them of their rights.
He said the failure of extremists to carry out the Bible burning showed that Muslims and Malays were generally against extremism.
“These extremists not only wanted to burn the Bible but to burn down Malaysia,” he wrote.
He said Penang could serve a symbol for the ability of people of different cultural backgrounds to absorb their differences and live in peace.
For this reason, he added, his government was confident that “outside threats to disrupt the mutual respect and destroy racial harmony with vile and abhorrent acts like burning Bibles will certainly fail.”
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