Nanyang Siang Pau, April 23, 2015

Kuala Lumpur, April 22 – Vice president of Gerakan Dr. Dominic Lau Hoe Chai said the demonstration against a cross held in front of a church in Taman Medan last Sunday once again signified the long unsettled problem of places of worship.

He said this was not the first time incident involving places of worship had happened in the country. In Selangor, such incidents had happened during the administration of Barisan Nasional and also Pakatan Rakyat. This showed that both BN and Pakatan were not sincere in solving the problem.

“Places of worship is not something new, all the while we are facing with shortage of land to be used as the places of worshipping. Land is the right of the state government, the state government did not allocate ample land for the purpose of building temples and churches, the states administered by Pakatan also facing with the same problem,” he said.

Dominic Lau said this in a statement issued today.

Should simplify the application procedures

He said even after the state government had allocated land for certain religious bodies, there were those ridiculous conditions set by the local councils such as some cases in Shah Alam and Puchong.

He said the existence of illegal temples converted from houses and the setting up of churches on the rented shop lots were due to the difficulty in getting land to build temple or church other than the mosque.

He suggested that the government should institutionalize and systematize the provision of places of worship based on the population structure and locality, and also to simplify and unify the regulations and procedures of application for the places of worship throughout the whole country.

“Moreover, since the constitution guarantees freedom of religion, besides funding Islam, government should also provide financial aids to other religions, after all religion ensures peace of the nation and society.

“I hope that the government can formulate an act on racial and religion relationship to contain the instigative act by some religious extremists who had tried to create troubles,” he added.

Original Source:
教会被逼拆十字架风波•刘华才：难获土地 宗教场所课题悬而未决