Anwar: Small-minded to ban students from Adelaide talk

Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim has slammed the Public Services Department's (PSD) Australian adviser, who allegedly issued a warning to government scholars not to attend an event featuring his talk in Adelaide on Saturday.

Anwar said these are "small minds operating under the orchestration of Umno. They operate even beyond Malaysian waters.

"This is a seige mentality. They do not want the students to be exposed to other views because we are often labelled as pro-Communist and pro-Christians.

"They cannot imagine that we have direct access to the students," Anwar added.

The event in question is "Festival of Ideas - Dissent and Democracy: An Audience with Anwar Ibrahim."

He said he was also invited to read the khutbah in a mosque in Adelaide on Friday.

"I don't know if they would stop people from coming to hear mykhutbah also," he jested.

Anwar was referring to a letter posted on the Facebook page of 'Penasihat Pendidikan Latihan Australia' on Oct 14, signed by PSD student adviser Shahrezan Sheriff.

In the letter posted, Shahrezan warns, "I wouldn't hesitate to take action against to those (JPA Scholars) who involved. You know really well what you've signed into."

A check by Malaysiakini revealed that Shahrezan is also listed as an adviser on the Education Malaysia Australia (EMA) and last year was a senior assistant director for the human model development (Pembangunan Modal Insan) division in PSD.