Mujahid firm on tabling bills for national unity

PETALING JAYA: Parit Buntar MP Mujahid Yusof Rawa remains hopeful that the Dewan Rakyat speaker will allow him to table for debate bills that he says will lead to the strengthening of national unity.

This is despite Prime Minister Najib Razak’s recent statement that the government believes efforts towards unity should be carried out through education instead of new laws. Najib made the statement in a written reply to Lim Lip Eng (DAP-Segambut).

Mujahid acknowledged that the statement seemed like a precursor to rejection of his private member’s bills on hate speech, harmony and equality, but he told FMT that Najib might look at the bills differently upon seeing that they were prepared partly as proposed amendments to the Sedition Act and Penal Code.

“The anti-discrimination and hate speech bills are meant to empower those laws so that they protect national harmony,” he said.

Mujahid said such bills were important because recent incidents made it seem as though present laws were powerless in addressing the problem of hate speech.

“The aim is to achieve stronger national unity,” he said.

“We need these laws not because there are no laws that are supposed to handle incidents of hate speech but because the laws that do exist seem to have done nothing for national unity.”

When asked why he was optimistic despite the prime minister’s recent statement, Mujahid said it was his duty as an elected representative to remain hopeful.

“I always have hope because this is beyond petty politics,” he said. “It is for the nation.”

News of Mujahid’s private member’s bills was first heard early this month during a roundtable discussion on promoting multiculturalism.

At the discussion, held in Shah Alam, he said the bills were important because Umno was becoming increasingly extreme in its statements on matters relating to race and religion.

It was recently reported that there was bipartisan support for Mujahid’s three bills: the Religious Hate Crimes Bill, the National Harmony Commission Bill and the Equality Act. -FMT