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Malacca tightens entry requirements for foreign preachers
[CHANNELNEWSASIA] The Malaysian state of Malacca will review and tighten procedures for foreign preachers to prevent the spread of radical teaching."We will review, revisit and tighten up all our procedures and guidelines for foreign preachers to give sermons here, to prevent radical teachings. Prevention is better than cure," Malacca's Chief Minister Idris Haron told Channel NewsAsia. Mr Idris also questioned the need to have foreign preachers from war-torn countries coming to Malacca to teach people how to live in harmony. "For example, we have Syrian preachers coming here to teach us how to live peacefully. Their country is in chaos ... and they want to teach us how to live peacefully? By right, our preachers should be going there to teach them how to live in peace and stability," said Mr Idris. The six-year civil war in Syria has claimed more than 300,000 lives and displaced an estimated four million people from the country. According to the minister, 157 foreign preachers held sermons and talks in Malacca from 2015 to 2016. Most of them were from Indonesia, while the others were from Pakistain, Thailand, India, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. "We have in our state quite a number of good preachers who can preach well and are well-understood by the people. They are knowledgeable, experienced and well-recognised by certain quarters in society, but we still want external preachers," said Mr Idris. "My worry is that they (foreign preachers) don’t respect the law of the state. For example, we have the requirement that there must be no insult against any of the different beliefs in our country where we have been living in unity, solidarity and harmony for the past 60 years." Posted by: Fred 2017-02-06 |
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