IT has been 11 weeks that PAS president Tan Sri Hadi Awang has not been able to produce an iota of evidence to substantiate his wild and preposterous allegations that DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam, communist and promoting Islamopobia, and yet unwilling to apologise for his allegations and retract them.
Will Hadi follow Perak PAS chief Razman Zajarua’s example and apologise for his baseless and preposterous allegation that DAP promoting Islamophobia or will he have to be dragged to court like Razman before doing so?
On Thursday (Feb 9), Razman apologised to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim at the Ipoh High Court for claiming during an election campaign last year that Anwar condoned LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) practices as part of a settlement agreement between the two.
Anwar’s lawyer SN Nair said his client had consented to the settlement agreement as a goodwill gesture and to let the matter rest.
Will Hadi reiterate his allegation that the DAP is promoting Islamophobia in Parliament which begins on Monday (Feb 13)?
Hadi must be made an example of how irresponsible and immoral a political/religious leader can be in making wild, preposterous, and completely baseless allegations of political opponents – a practice which must be stopped in an era where the toxic and divisive politics of lies, falsehoods, and fake news could polarise race and religious relations in a plural society like Malaysia.
Hadi had also been seriously remiss in his duties as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to the Middle East to two “backdoor” prime ministers – Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri – when he failed to report to the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) Islamophobia Observatory which conducts global and daily monitoring of Islamophobia about such phenomenon in Malaysia.
I asked last week whether Hadi was suggesting that Malaysians who do not vote for PAS candidates in elections were promoting Islamophobia?
Hadi got away in 2018 when he made preposterous allegations against the DAP for being the mastermind over the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) ratification issue when the DAP knew nothing about the issue.
But Hadi has never apologised for his preposterous allegations against the DAP when he knew the truth. The ICERD issue in 2018 has allowed Hadi to spread lies and falsehoods that DAP was anti-Malay, anti-Islam, and anti-royalty.
Malaysia’s race and religious relations have reached a new nadir as illustrated by the recent incidents: the segregation of students based on religion in a SPM workshop in Johor; a national women’s hockey player’s racist remarks about the concert of a famous Indian composer; and a teacher who allegedly told one of his students to embrace Islam to boost his chances of becoming a national footballer and pervasive racism in sports.
Are we to stand idly by while polarisation in race and religion relations escalates? – Feb 11, 2023
Retired DAP supremo and former Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang, 81, has a colourful political career spanning 57 years.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
