Zaid: Assembly invasion shows Malaysia a step away from Pakistan’s assassinations
(Malay Mail Online) – The intrusion of the Penang assembly by Umno members to demand an apology from a lawmaker shows that Malaysia has reached the intolerance in Pakistan that led to the assassination of a lawyer there, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim asserted today.
Joining others in condemning the incident that saw around 50 Umno members protesting outside the assembly before a dozen forced their way onto the grounds and into the House, the former Cabinet minister said the event was a frightening development in Malaysia.
“Those who went on a rampage recently at the Penang Legislative Assembly looking for RSN Rayer, the Seri Delima Assemblyman who dared to label Umno ‘celaka’, are as intolerant as the gunmen who killed Rehman in Pakistan,” Zaid wrote on his blog today.
“Ostensibly there to defend the Malays and Islam, the Penang mob threw eggs and shouted obscenities.”
The former lawmaker was drawing parallels with a case of religious blasphemy in Pakistan that led to the assassination of lawyer Rehman Rashi, who had been defending poet Junaid Hafeez against the charge.
In another similar incident this month, a teenager walked into a police station in Islamabad, Pakistan and shot dead a man accused of religious blasphemy in the Muslim country.
Today, Zaid said the sole issue preventing Malaysians from using murder as a response to insults was the greater difficulty in procuring firearms in the country.
“In Malaysia I fear we have now reached that same level of intolerance. The only difference is we cannot get our hands on guns as easily as in Pakistan.
“Pakistan and Malaysia have taken the same path, one where leaders believe that as long as we have vibrant economic activities, they need not address the behaviour of the mobs,” he wrote today.
Aside from the intrusion, he noted that the country’s leaders continue to remain silent on “those who make statements attacking Christians or other non-Muslims for fear of alienating so-called Islamic NGOs”.
Christians in Malaysia are regularly accused of proselytising to Muslims here, which is illegal. But despite the frequency of the claims, no person has yet been prosecuted for such an offence.
When debating the Governor’s speech on Tuesday, Rayer uttered the words “celaka Umno (damn Umno)”, triggering outrage among the party’s lawmakers.
The incident later prompted a group of some 50 Umno members to protest outside the state assembly on Wednesday, with some forcing their way onto the grounds and into the House to hunt down Nayer for an apology, before leaving frustrated.
The police later said they had detained 12 men to assist in investigations, aged between 22 and 35 years. All 12 were released on bail at yesterday.
