The Sultan of Selangor has returned Bibles and religious literature confiscated by the State Islamic Affairs Department

The Sultan of Selangor has returned Bibles and religious literature confiscated by the State Islamic Affairs Department on 2 Jan 2014 for using the world “Allah” in Malay and Iban language versions of Scripture to the Archbishop of South East Asia, the Most Rev. Bolly Lapok, Bishop of Kuching. On 14 Nov 2014, on behalf of the government the Sultan returned the Bibles to Archbishop Lapok, who is also chairman of the Christian Association of Sarawak, on the condition that they be distributed in Borneo, not in Malaya. A statement released by the Selangor Islamic Religious Council said the Sultan had ordered the Bibles be returned after state prosecutors declined to Bible Society officials arrested in the January raid on charges of proselytizing Muslims. Archbishop Lapok thanked the Sultan for his intervention in the dispute. “It would not have been proper to allow these Bibles to be stored indefinitely or destroyed. In this manner, the Bibles are being delivered to the ACS for distribution in Sarawak,” he said.