KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Malaysian government said Shiites in the country are barred from promoting their faith to other Muslims but are free to practice it themselves.

In December 2010 (Moharram), some 200 Shiites were arrested by religious authorities who accused them of threatening national security in multicultural Malaysia.

"We don't prohibit Shiite adherents to practice but there are (laws) that don't allow preaching to adherents of Sunnah Wal Jamaah (Sunnis)," Islamic affairs minister Jamil Khir Baharom told parliament according to state media.

Jamil Khir said the government had made "various efforts" to halt the spread of the faith in the country, including issuing fatawa against the sect and the "monitoring and control of materials promoting Shiism."

Shiite community leader Kamil Zuhairi Abdul Aziz said Wednesday that Shiites in Malaysia do not preach to other Muslims.

"Although we keep a very low profile, live in harmony with Sunnis and non-Muslims and practice our religion within our community, we have been persecuted by the authorities for many decades," he told AFP.

"In fact, we are not the ones who are spreading our faith. By arresting us and making this an issue, the state religious authorities are giving us the publicity and spreading our teachings."

The estimated 40,000 Shiites in Malaysia are one of several Islamic sects under close watch by religious authorities, who crack down hard on them.

A 1989 Islamic law and a 1996 fatwa by Malaysia's top Islamic clerics banned Shiism, declaring it a deviant ideology.