PETALING JAYA: A PBB official has dismissed Sarawak DAP leader Chong Chieng Jen’s recent remark about religious teachers as the ranting of a person showing signs of paranoia.
Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, a member of the Sarawak ruling party’s supreme council, said Chong was generalising when he claimed that religious teachers from Peninsular Malaysia would change the thinking of Muslims in the state.
In a statement he released on Friday, Chong called for a halt in the import of Islamic religious teachers from Peninsular Malaysia, saying he feared that they would influence local Muslims to adopt their ways of thinking and living.
Speaking to FMT, Abdul Karim acknowledged that Sarawak Muslims were more liberal than their counterparts on the peninsula, but he said Islamic teachings were the same everywhere in Malaysia and only paranoia could have caused Chong to think otherwise.
He said the sensitive matter of religion was seldom used in political discourse in Sarawak and it wasn’t right for Chong to do so.
“Maybe Chong is swayed too much by Peninsular Malaysian politicians that he is beginning to speak like one.”
He said there could be no justification for the resentment shown in Chong’s statement.
“Chong shouldn’t tell Sarawak Muslims who should or shouldn’t teach Islamic studies. Let Sarawak Muslims determine this and speak for themselves,” he added.
“We appreciate Islamic teachers from anywhere to teach our kids and make them good, respectful and obedient beings.”
He said the Sarawak government would not hesitate to ask for the repatriation of any teacher showing extremist tendencies. -Free Malaysia Today
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