MCA Youth demand police investigate Utusan Malaysia’s Christian Malaysia reports, as well as two blog posts cited by the newspaper.
The youth wing of the Barisan Nasional (BN) party lodged a police report today asking for the Umno-owned newspaper and the blog posts to be investigated under the Sedition Act.
Dr Kow Cheong Wei, MCA Youth publicity chief, told reporters that the police should conduct a thorough probe because race and religion had been abused.
“We do not want and will not allow any party to use these issues, whether Islam or Christianity or any religion to be a propaganda tool in this country.
“We objected to the Islamic state by PAS and now we will not allow any party that brings out any issues regarding religion. We were advised, according to today’s papers, by Datuk Seri Najib that everyone must be calm and I think we as the youth, we do not want to raise whatever words or any additional statements,” he said, adding that he expects the police to act on the matter immediately.
Kevin Koo, an MCA Youth central committee member, also a lawyer, had lodged the police report today on behalf of the Federal Territory and Selangor MCA Youth at the Dang Wangi Police Headquarters to investigate an article published by Utusan Malaysia on May 17 with the headline “Malaysia, a Christian country?” as well as the cited articles published in two different blogs.
Utusan carried the front-page article on Saturday claiming that the DAP was conspiring with Christian leaders to take over Putrajaya and abolish Islam as the country’s official religion.
The report, based on blog postings by several pro-Umno bloggers, had charged the DAP with sedition for allegedly trying to change the country’s laws to allow a Christian prime minister, pointing to a grainy photograph showing what they described as a secret pact between the opposition party and pastors at a hotel in Penang last Wednesday.
The National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF), together with partners Global Day of Prayer, Marketplace Penang and Penang Pastors Fellowship, said the claims against their community were lies, and has refuted the bloggers’ allegations.
Similarly, DAP leaders have denied the report and have accused Utusan of lying and have lodged police reports over the matter.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had called for calm yesterday and to allow the matter to be investigated first before making conclusions.
Chiew Lian Keng, Federal Territory MCA Youth Chief, said if such articles continued to be published, Malaysians will end up in a climate of fear.
“We urge MCMC (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission) and the police to investigate this case as soon as possible. According to Utusan, two bloggers had spread the statement so we want the MCMC to investigate the dissemination of the statement.
“We don’t want to see any racial and religious problems in Malaysia to continue. Our country is peaceful but if this continues, the public will be living in fear,” he said.
