'The ministry obeys a directive made 25 years ago on the bible ban, rather than obey the present prime minister. What rubbish is this?'
Bible ban based on 1986 cabinet decision
The Rover: What has the appeal over the High Court decision in the Herald case got to do with this arbitrary decision to confiscate the Holy Bible in the Malay language?
The appeal is over Herald's right to use the word ‘Allah' in their publication. This, on the other hand, is action by the Home Ministry to ban the Malay-language bible printed in Indonesia altogether.
Sandakan: We have little 'Napoleans' like Zaitun Ab Samad (Home Ministry's publications control and Quranic text division secretary) who supposedly is frozen into inaction because of a cabinet decision made a quarter century ago.
That is the reason why the FDI (foreign direct investment) drops and thousands have decided to emigrate. Zaitun selectively obeys a directive made 25 years ago by a cabinet, some of whom are already dead, rather than obey the present prime minister. What rubbish is this?
Malaysiawatch4.blogspot: The government has the discretion to withdraw its case or does it only want to take that action just before the state elections in Sarawak or just before the GE?
This is what happens when political parties rule for so long. The rot starts at the top but now it has spread to most of the organs of the government. Even if they release the bibles now, Christians should not fall for such a cheap trick. We need to change this government that has lost its legitimacy to govern.
Docs: Nice move by the Home Ministry to blame this bible ban debacle on a cabinet decision made in 1986. If I am not wrong, the head of the cabinet at that time was none other Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Dood: Wait a minute... let me get this straight: The cabinet ministers themselves made this ban, and then when people appeal against it, the cabinet conveniently washes its hands off it by saying they can't do anything because it is in the courts?
They are powerless to remove the ban that they created themselves but instead give some lame excuse that the courts now hold the power over their own unilateral rule, which seems to me further that it was not even one that was officially approved by lawmakers in Parliament?
Ridzuan: What are MCA, MIC, Gerakan, PPP, and all the BN parties from East Malaysia doing? Is it that your pockets are already full and that is enough for you? You have forgotten your responsibility to the rakyat? There must be freedom of worship.
Singa Pura Pura: Is the faith of the Malays so predictably thin and insubstantial that they (the Malays) even need a religious-NEP of sorts to prod them up when it comes to matters of personal faith?
I think the Umno regime underestimates the true power of the Malays and of Islam as a faith. You don't need affirmative action for religion, much less for faith. The mere reading of the Bible will not convert the reader to Christianity.
For that to happen, faith is required. I wonder if the Umno men have faith in Islam.
Halt MRT project, say Pakatan MPs
Ksn: This is a very timely and reasonable request to stop work on the MRT. There is absolutely no harm in that because a huge sum is going to be spent - the figure is still not final yet - and funds should not go to waste.
There should be no hurry, until a complete study is done and inputs from various parties are received and analysed, and maybe more than once, to ensure that it will serve the purpose it is meant to.
What is the harm in taking time over this, unless of course, some personal interests are taking precedence.
Bobby Cheng: We taxpayers want every cent of our hard-earned money accounted for. This looks to be another white elephant project. In the first place, who are IJM-Gamuda? They aren't even specialist consultants.
How can you engage a turnkey contractor as a consultant? Are you trying to con the entire country of billions of ringgit?
Hann Wei Toh: Looked a little closer using Wikimapia. Actually, residents of TTDI, BU2 and BU3, as well as quite a large part of SS21, BU1, BU6, BU7 and BU10 do not need to drive to the train station. Their houses are only about one kilometre away. One kilometre is not a long distance to require driving, although one can choose to do that occasionally.
In fact, driving and parking the car will take almost the same amount of time as walking directly from home to the station. This is the distance I walk daily from home to a bus station. A feeder bus may be useful for some, but I guess most people will eventually find walking that distance very reasonable.
Based on this reasoning, I would say the original proposed site for the station is acceptable, and in my opinion, better than the alternative.
Paradigm Shift: The people must be consulted. Has an EIA been done? What about the noise exposure to residents around the lines. I have felt high noise levels in the current LRT system in PJ areas when I visited some friends homes.
The country has noise regulations and the authorities are very stringent when it comes to factories emitting noise above the acceptable levels. So can we have the same for the LRTs and other train systems?
Gen2indian: With Penang and Selangor not in BN's hands, what other ways to spend money, apart from the MRT and the 100-storey tower so that the well-connected can make money and pass it on to Umno?
No public transport system in the world has been known to make money. It is a public service project. If this project fails, we, the rakyat will again be made to bear the cost. Remember Perwaja, MISC (Malaysia International Shipping Corporation) and a hundred other such failures?
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