Minister fires back, dubs DAP ‘father of all racists’

(Malay Mail Online) – Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob trained his guns on DAP today as he continued to fend off claims of racism over his Chinese boycott call, pointing out that the opposition party often plays the race card when pushing their agenda to the public.

The embattled minister, who has refused to apologise for his remark telling Malay consumers not to patronise profiteering Chinese-owned businesses, also accused DAP of manipulating public sentiment over the high prices of goods to gain voter support.

“When the prices don’t go down, the opposition, DAP, PAS and others, use this situation to blame the government.

“This means that the goods that do not drop in price are used to the advantage of the opposition and manipulated by them to blame the government,” the minister was quoted saying today in The Malaysian Insider.

“We know the true face of DAP… the biggest father of all racist people in Malaysia is DAP,” he reportedly added during his visit to the Taman Melawati market in Hulu Kelang this morning.

On Monday, Ismail Sabri sparked a firestorm of protests over his Facebook post urging Malay consumers to boycott allegedly profiteering Chinese businesses, and singling out the Old Town White Coffee franchise as an example of an “anti-Islamic” business.

In the same post, the Umno minister also claimed that the famous franchise has links to Perak DAP Chairman Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham.

The agriculture and agro-based industries minister also claimed that the high price of goods despite the dip in fuel costs was a form of sabotage aimed at stirring public dissent against the government.

Explaining his remarks later, Ismail Sabri said he was not directing his words towards the Chinese community, but merely to unscrupulous Chinese businesses that have been indiscriminately raising their prices and keeping costs high.

The minister has since deleted the Facebook post, and Putrajaya issued a statement to “clarify” that the minister was referring to all unscrupulous traders and not only those of Chinese descent.

Yesterday, Ismail Sabri refused a second time to apologise for labelling Ngeh “anti-Islam”, and told the Perak DAP leader to proceed with his legal suit.

He said it was Ngeh’s right to start defamation proceedings against him and that he was prepared to defend against the case.

“If he wants to take action, that is his right. And I am ready to take action. I’ll see him in court,” Ismail at a forum organised by Umno Youth here.

Ngeh had given Ismail a two-day deadline to retract his allegedly defamatory remarks, and initiated legal action today after the deadline expired.

Ngeh reiterated his claim that Ismail Sabri had in his Facebook posting lied when allegedly using the anti-Islam tag on him and his family, and lied again by saying he was referring to another Ngeh family in Perak.