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Friday, 9 May 2014

Isma man cries ‘double standard’ over police report

An activist says Malaysia needs more people like Abdullah Zaik to stand up against non-Malays.

PETALING JAYA: An activist of Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) today accused critics of the organisation’s leader of practising a double standard in calling for his punishment under the Sedition Act.

“These are the same people who cried foul whenever their leaders were convicted for seditious remarks,” said Zaizul Azizi Zaman in a comment on the current outcry over Isma president Abdullah Zaik’s remark that the forefathers of Chinese Malaysians were “intruders” into the country.

“Now they want to use this very same act to silence the voice that merely quoted from an academic publication.”

In making the offending remark, Abdullah had referred to Rubert Emerson’s Malaysia: A Study in Direct and Indirect Rule, published in 1937.

Zaizul said Abdullah’s statement was long overdue because the Malays had been too complacent, allowing others to take advantage of their leaders’ lack of political will.

“There should be more people like Abdullah Zaik and more NGO’s like Isma,” he said.

“It is good indeed that someone is finally using facts to stand up and call a spade a spade.

“We’ve been too accommodating. We’ve allowed the non-Malays to be too outspoken in their publications and electronic media, degrading and criticising everything controlled by Malays.

“We are always associated with negativity.”

Meanwhile, Abdullah has posted an article on ISMAweb in which he accused DAP of being chauvinistic and questioned its decision to make a police report over his earlier remark.

“DAP is battling for democracy and freedom of speech,” he said. “Yet it seems that they’re only doing it for the benefit of their own community. When we voice out our rights, they immediately make a police report.

“Do they think that it will stop Isma and silence other Islamic NGO’s?”

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