"issued officially or unofficially". He also added that there is "nothing wrong in singing songs such as 'Silent Night' and 'Merry Christmas'" as they are "joyous songs for the festival." Lee Min Choon, legal adviser to the CFM and the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship issued a statement which said "It means that churches can celebrate Christmas as they have been doing all along. Otherwise, the very meaning of the occasion will be lost." "Now, everybody should take the government at its word and celebrate Christmas the way they normally celebrate and express their religious faith." Good Friday Good Friday is not a federal public holiday, but is a state public holiday in Sabah, and also in Sarawak, where Christianity is the largest religion; both states were granted some level of greater autonomy than other states in the Federation, as they were considered polities on par with Malaya when they merged with it and Singapore to form Malaysia. But it is a school holiday for some schools (or specifically, non-Muslim-majority schools). However, there is no evidence that this theological objection plays any role in the non-inclusion of Good Friday as a holiday. On the contrary, Good Friday is probably not a public holiday because, as a whole in the federation, Christians constitutes 9.2% of the population according to the 2010 Census. The other two significant religious minorities in Malaysia, Buddhists and Hindus, also receive just one federal public holiday each – Wesak Day and Deepavali respectively. Deepavali however, is not federal holiday in the state of Sarawak. Independence Day/Malaysia Day fasting Malaysian Christians sometimes hold fasts ending on Independence Day or Malaysia Day and pray for Muslims. A number of explanations have been given for doing so including a desire to show patriotism, promoting religious harmony, and celebrating freedom of religion. Since 2000 the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship, with 2,800 member churches, has organised these fasts and they are ongoing event as of 2010. All previous fasts have ended on Independence Day but the 2010 fast was followed by Malaysia Day and thus for the first time coincided with Ramadan. Distribution of Christians According to the 2010 Census, there were 2,951,159 people self-identifying as Christians (11.2% of the population). Of the Christians, 1,878,193 were Bumiputra, 726,479 were Chinese, 134,281 were Indian, 23,871 Others and 264,336 were non-citizens. Information collected in the census based on respondent's answer and did not refer to