YOUTH and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh was spot on when she claims that Perikatan Nasional (PN) is doing everything possible to divert attention away from the wrongdoings of its key leaders – the latest being the seven charges of power abuse, corruption and money laundering levelled at its chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
In so doing, the Segambut MP claimed that the opposition has gone to the extent of making her a “punching bag” by associating an agency under her ministry as spearheading a “Christian Evangelist” movement.
In this regard, the DAP’s national publicity assistant secretary took a jibe at PAS whose deputy president Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man had in October 2018 – during the reign of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration – said PAS had no issue with Muslims visiting temples and churches as long as they did not participate in the rituals.
In fact, the Kubang Kerian MP has made Prophet Muhammad’s companion Saidina Umar Al-Khattab as a known example of Muslim leaders who is known to have visited churches in Palestine.
“HarakahDaily (PAS; mouthpiece) reported Tuan Ibrahim as saying that it was not haram (prohibited) for Muslims to enter the houses of worship of non-Muslims,” she told the Dewan Rakyat yesterday (March 14) when replying to points raised about her ministry during the debate on the Supply Bill 2023.
“If PN wants to attack me, they should check what their partners had said before. Don’t say (Muslim) youths should not be allowed in churches when PAS had said there was nothing wrong. People will get confused.”
This comes in the backdrop of Yeoh’s political secretary Yap Yee Vonne having lodged a police report against blogger Badrul Hisham Shaharin a.k.a. Chegubard for linking the Youth and Sports Ministry to Christian evangelism in his Facebook post on Monday (March 13).
Badrul, a member of Bersatu, had shared a poster by Impact Malaysia, a non-profit organisation under the ministry, about a planned visit to the Our Lady of Lourdes church in Klang on March 18.
According to the promotional poster, the visit was for non-Christians who wanted to know more about the faith. Even then, Yeoh said Impact Malaysia would prohibit Muslims from visiting any church under the programme called “Jom Ziarah” with similar programmes only seeing the participation of Chinese and Indian youths.
Henceforth, Yeoh said those who made such “wild accusations” against her were out to make her a “punching bag” to divert attention from the court charges faced by PN leaders.
Impact Malaysia has since responded to Badrul by saying that the programme was part of an integrated campaign to foster better understanding among the country’s multi-racial and multi-religious communities. It had also organised visits to mosques and Hindu temples.
Despite Yeoh’s clarification, Badrul Hisham is adamant that the Malay language poster is clearly targeted at Malay youths “to lure them to churches” and that the church visit slated for March 18 should be cancelled.
“Everyone is free to carry out their own religious deeds but the promotion (preaching) of other religions among Muslims is a CRIME!” penned the controversial blogger in an earlier FB post.
“Creating a programme to bring young people to the mosque should not be made as an excuse to bring non-Christians to churches. This clearly promotes pluralism and extreme liberalism!”
Added Badrul Hisham: “Don’t think that as a minister (referring to Yeoh), you can use your power to suppress efforts to defend the religion (Islam) and nation.” – March 15, 2023
