Memo to govt: No state religion needed

Published on: Thursday, August 09, 1962

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North Borneo News and Sabah Times (9.8.1962) - JESSELTON. Wednesday. — The National Delegates Conference of the North Borneo Association has decided to submit a memorandum to the Government as well as all the political parties, it was learned here today. The memorandum will contain such matters as:

Citizenship: - any person who has lived 7 years out of the past ten years should be granted citizenship rights.

National language: - English should be adopted as the national language of the country and all the other racial languages should also be used.

Racial culture and education should be maintained and safeguarded.

Freedom of religion: - there should be absolute freedom of religion and no state religion will be needed, and all religions should be treated as equal.

And it was unanimously accepted in the last section of the Conference on Tuesday.

The inaugural meeting of the NBCA which began in the afternoon of last Saturday ended yesterday after four days.

Before the adjournment of the Conference, other resolutions were also passed it was reported.

The main resolutions were:

l To send a letter to the Government urging for mediate measures to ensure security along the East he Coast so as to prevent pirate raids.

l To ask the Government to ban gambling during the to Chinese New Year Holidays.

l To reject strongly the Filipino claim on sovereignty of North Borneo.

l To seek and foster a closer link with other Chinese organizations within the Malaysia area.

l All the details of the memorandum and the resolutions will be worked out by the Central Executive Committee.

Before the opening of the inaugural meeting of the Conference there had been a preparatory meeting which lasted for over two days.

It was said that the preparatory meeting at first aimed at ironing out some of the big snags on the proposed agenda, but no conclusion had been reached during the two days of secret meeting on this aspect.

A seven-man sub-committee was appointed to mediate the merger of the United Party and the Democratic Party, because in the preparatory meeting some of the delegates had expressed the fear that if there was no merger between the UP and DP it would be difficult for the NBCA to carry on its work.

The seven-man subcommittee met representatives of both parties as a third party in negotiation before the opening meeting of the conference.

However, it has failed to bring any result, it was further learned.