Massive turnout at Kuching prayer rally

 Stephanie Sta Maria

 | March 24, 2011

Christians in Sarawak send a powerful message to the government at a massive prayer rally in Kuching.

KUCHING: Christians in Sarawak sent out a powerful message to the government when thousands of them turned up at a prayer rally on religious freedom here last night.

Nearly 3,000 Christians packed the Christian Accumenical Worship Centre to pray and listen to their leaders speak on the controversial Al-Kitab issue.
The rally was organised by the Sarawak Ministers Fellowship (SMF), which is an alliance of Sarawak churches including the Kuching Ministers Fellowship, Miri Pastors Fellowship, Sibu Pastors Fellowship, Bintulu Pastors Fellowship and Gempuru Besai Raban Jaku Iban Malaysia.

The rally is the first of its kind in Sarawak and also the first time that the normally conservative Christian community has publicly voiced its unhappiness with the government. Similar rallies will be held throughout Sarawak at later dates.

A SMF spokesman said that the massive turnout had even taken them by surprise as they only expected 2,000 at the most.

“The rally was scheduled to start at 8pm but people were already queuing to get in by 7.30pm,” he told FMT. “The gathering was bigger than any political ceramah and is the clearest indication yet of our unhappiness over the handling of the Al-Kitab issue.”

“The Christians of Sarawak are rising up for the first time to confront an issue which has deeply affected them. We have been very quiet all this while but enough is enough and we want to send this message to those in the corridors of power.”

The rally was led by leaders of all the churches under the SMF umbrella and held in Bahasa Malaysia, English and Mandarin. Two-thirds of the leaders are Dayaks and there was a strong native presence in the crowd.
The SMF spokesman said that the rally had not come under any threat from the authorities and attributed this to the practice of religious tolerance in East Malaysia.

“A few state opposition leaders also attended the rally although SMF hadn’t invited them as we didn’t want to be associated with politics,” he said. “But I didn’t see any BN faces in the crowd.”
Among the Pakatan Rakyat leaders were Sarawak PKR chief Baru Bian , Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jen and Pending assemblywoman Violet Yong.

‘A terrible thing to say’
When contacted, Yong confirmed that she had not received an invitation from SMF but from her fellow Christian friends.

“God has showed His way of speech through the people last night,” she said. “The Christian community has felt the threat to their religious freedom and cannot accept God’s word being controlled by the law of the land.”
Meawhile, Deputy Information and Culture Minister Joseph Salang Gandum came under fire for dismissing the rally as “people making fools of themselves”.

Yong said that his statement reflected BN’s continuing ignorance of the issue faced by the Christian community and his disrespect of the Christians in Sarawak.
SMF called Salang’s statement “a terrible thing to say” and lambasted him for not showing appropriate concern for the people’s voice.

“Actually, even if he did we would not take him seriously because we know what BN is really up to,” its spokesman said.

SMF yesterday demanded the unconditional release of 35,000 copies of the Al-Kitab at the Kuching Port as well as unrestricted passage of future shipments.

Last week, the home ministry had ordered the release of the Al-Kitab in Sarawak on the condition that it be stamped with the words “For Christians Only” and marked with a serial number.
Despite a volley of protest from the Christian community, the bibles were stamped without prior consultation with any of the Christian leadership in Malaysia.
FMT