As Christians around the world prepare to mark their most important holiday, hundreds of thousands of believers in southeast Asia face the prospect of celebrating Easter without free access to the Bible.
In a decision indigenous Christians in eastern Malaysia have found incomprehensible, their government in Kuala Lumpur – which considers itself one of Asia’s more successful democracies – has banned the Bible in their native tongue.
The Iban, the largest of 27 indigenous ethnic groups in Sarawak province on Borneo island, have since 1988 had access to the entire Bible in their own language, published by the Bible Society of Malaysia.
But now the mainly Muslim government’s Home Ministry has named the Iban-language Bible as one of 35 publications it is banning because they are considered “detrimental to public peace.”
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