The 30,000 Bibles, still detained by the Home Ministry, are for distribution mainly to schools, churches and longhouses in Betong and Saratok, according to the consignee.

"The rest are to be distributed to other Christian areas," said the consignee, who spoke on condition that his name be not published for security reasons, to Malaysiakini today.

"The Bibles are not meant for distribution to Muslim or Muslim areas. We know better than to do that," he said.

He paid US$26,400 in printing costs and for transporting the bibles from Jakarta to Sarawak.

He said he is assigned by the Gideon Church of Sarawak to distribute a minimum of 50,000 Bibles in Sarawak every year.

"We keep on receiving orders from schools, churches and longhouses for the Bibles. If we are to meet the demand, we need to distribute at least 100,000 Bibles a year," he added.

The Bibles are printed in Indonesia.

 No instructions

The consignee said he was called to identify the Bibles on Jan 12 this year at the Kuching Port.

"I was accompanied by the officials from the Home Ministry and the Customs Department.

"I was then told that I could not distribute the Bibles in Sarawak as it contained words which are also found in the Quran," he said, adding that he was shown some documents about the ban.

The consignee said he was asked to transport the Bibles to the Home Ministry office at Jalan Satok for storage.

He added he had to pay over RM2,000 to transport the Bibles to the ministry's store.

"Last week, I inquired from the ministry officials when they were going to release the Bibles to me, and I was told that Putrajaya had not given any instructions as yet," he said.

He said he was disappointed at the ministry for continuing to detain the Bibles as he knew that Sarawak and Sabah were exempted from the ban on the distribution of Malay or Indonesian language Bibles by the ministry.

"The natives of Sarawak and Sabah have been using the same Bibles long before Malaysia was formed in 1963.

"We did not have any problems from the Muslims in Sarawak as there are similarities in the languages of the local Malay and the non-Malay natives," he said.

"We have problems after Sarawak became part of Malaysia because certain Muslims in Peninsular Malaysia objected to the use of certain words in the Bible," he added.

No problem for years

The consignee said the first time he encountered problems with the Home Ministry and Customs was in 2009 when he brought in 10,000 Bibles printed in Indonesia.

"The Bibles were released after some Christian leaders protested," he said.

The consignee said the Gideon Church bible had been the Malay/ Indonesian language Bible for years without problem from the Malaysian authorities.

He said the largest consignment of bibles he received was 200,000 some years ago.

He added there was no problem with the authorities then.

The consignment of Bibles are shipped direct from Jakarta to Kuching Port.

"If the consignment is shipped through Port Klang, we can expect problems to crop up with the authorities there," he explained.

NONEYesterday, PKR chief Baru Bian criticised the Home Ministry for detaining the 30,000 Bibles for distribution in Sarawak.

He considered the detention as for form of religious harassment of Christians in the State.

"It is not only a blatant disregard of our constitutional right as Christians in Malaysia but against the provision or the terms and conditions of the Malaysian Agreement of 1963 where we as Christians in Sarawak had been given the assurance and guarantee that our religious rights before we joined Malaysia, would be protected and guaranteed.

He said the Christians should not be fooled again of any promise, assurance and guarantee by the Prime Minister Najib Razak that there is freedom of religion in Malaysia because the detention of the Bibles is being done under his watch.

"Najib cannot push his responsibility away and say that it his little Napoleons who are causing all these problems."