Illegal religious buildings on government land will be demolished

SHAH ALAM: The state government will not hesitate to demolish any religious buildings built illegally on any government land.

Responding to a question by Teluk Datuk assemblymen on the stand and policies by the state government on non-Islamic synagogues built on government land, Sungai Pinang assemblymen Datuk Teng Chang Khim said that any religious houses built illegally on any government land after March 1, 2008, will be subject to demolition.

Teng explained that the action will be carried out based on a decision made during a state executive meeting in 2008.

He also pointed out that it was necessary for all enforcement action conducted to comply with the enforcement procedure guidelines for non-Islamic religious buildings and worship places built illegally in Selangor that was approved this year.

"This guideline states that all enforcement action must be brought to the non-Islamic affairs meeting where its committee is responsible for reviewing each state land gazetting process for the construction of non-Islamic worship buildings prior to any consideration of it in the state executive meeting.

"However, there are certain applications that will not be considered for gazetting if the land applied is located on the site of public facilities such as river reserves, road reserves, landfill reserves, reserve kindergarten and multipurpose hall reserves," he said.

Teng then revealed that from 2008 until this year, there were a total of 1,810 non-Islamic religious houses being recorded by the respective land and district offices in Selangor, with Kajang recording the highest number of non-Islamic religious buildings at 475.