A paper regarding religious tolerance in Peninsular Malaysia was withdrawn at the eleventh hour from an international conference in Sarawak attended by 120 academics from around the world.

The paper titled Religious Tolerance: A Case Study in Peninsular Malaysia was penned by three local university senior lecturers, including Universiti Putra Malaysia's (UPM) Sarawak-born Prof Dr Jayum Jawan.

Jayum was also the co-author of the controversial UPM guidebook on the ethnic relations subject, which the cabinet withdrew following much criticism.

Critics argued that certain contentious points in the guidebook would serve to burn rather than build bridges between Malaysia's various communities.

The other two authors of the paper on religious tolerance were Agus Mohd Yusoff of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM ) and UPM's Ahmad Fauzi Morad.

Requesting anonymity, a participant who read the paper told malaysiakini that he believed the withdrawal of the paper 'had to do more with the author than with the contents'.

PM Dept's directive?

Meanwhile, Jayum when contacted declined to comment on the matter for the time being.

However, a conference spokesperson told malaysiakini that it was not the organisers who decided to drop the paper.

"I understand from Jayum and through others that there was a directive from the Prime Minister's Department that he should not talk about the subject (religious tolerance) following the withdrawal of the controversial (ethnic relations) textbook," he said

The government had recently also called on all quarters, including the media, to refrain from discussing sensitive issues such as race and religion.

The two-day biennial conference of the Borneo Research Council (BRC) was hosted by the Institute of East Asian Studies of the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).

The US-based BRC's executive director Prof Dr Vinson Sutlive told malaysiakini there was an excellent quality of papers presented at this year's conference.

Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud was the guest of honour at a dinner to officiate the opening of the conference on Sunday.