KUALA LUMPUR: Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) chief Abdul Hadi Awang and Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman Lim Guan Eng are under investigation after allegedly making remarks on race and religion, according to the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM).
In a statement on Monday (Jul 10), PDRM Criminal Investigation Department deputy director Suresh Kumar G. Suppiah confirmed that Mr Abdul Hadi is under investigation for making statements allegedly touching on race, religion and royalty – popularly known as 3R.
“(Mr Abdul Hadi claimed that DAP) wants to retain the meaning of Islam in the Federal Constitution based on the interpretation of colonialists which upholds liberalism and freedoms practised by Western countries,” said Mr Suresh.
He added that the investigation is still in progress and advised the public against making any speculation that could interfere with the investigation.
In a Facebook post last Saturday, Mr Abdul Hadi said that the word ‘Islam’ in the Federal Constitution should be “translated from the language of the Quran which rejects the concept of secularism which is a colonial practice”.
“However, the DAP wants to maintain the meaning of Islam according to the colonialist mould in its struggle, in line with the DAP Constitution,” he said.
He added that PAS responds to “the problem of the Federal Constitution (interfering) with the perfect implementation of Islamic Syariah” by taking the approach of implementing Islamic rules in stages. He noted that the DAP has made statements in the past against such attempts by the Islamist party.
A recent study found that PAS played up racial rhetoric the most during the 15th General Election (GE15) in November last year.
The report, published by Malaysia’s Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), said PAS and Mr Abdul Hadi were the “biggest amplifiers of race”.
For example, the report pointed out that Mr Abdul Hadi’s TikTok post claiming that PH’s Chinese-based DAP was merely using Malay candidates to gain voter traction racked up 2.5 million engagement counts – the highest across all social media platforms.
Source: CNA
