Arrested Americans to have May Court Appearance in Malaysia

Two American Protestants still remain under arrest in Putrajaya, Malaysia for the distribution of Christian literature. They were ordered to be held in custody for two weeks by the local court.

Kevin Turner, a member of Strategic World Impact - an organisation helping Christians in need, said that one of them, Rick Rupert "had some Gospels of Luke with him, and he had 'The Passion of the Christ' film. But, from my understanding, when he was arrested, he had not been distributing any of these. A local imam, from the mosque, had called police, I guess, being upset about his activities."

As several cultures meet in Malaysia, some of the ethnic groups are not so open to new influences and religious freedom, especially ethnic Islamic Malay, said Turner. He went on saying that the arrest is the hidden message: " 'We do not want the Gospel coming to the Malay, here in Malaysia.' What we have here, is a law that absolutely contradicts the Word of God, and they're willing to, obviously, enforce that, by putting a man in prison who actually had not even committed any type of crime."

In the country, Islam is the official and favoured religion and over the past two decades there have been some limitations to religious freedom. However, over the past several years the rules were relaxed with relation to the places of worship and missionary visas.

Regardless of these, converting Muslims is still illegal and Turner expressed his worries as the date for hearing at court was set up on 9th May 2005. He worried that the case may become a 'Tier 5 case,' meaning it will go through the whole Malaysian court system.