Sarawak urged to scrap new MRSM Guidelines

These guidelines, according to the DAP, trample on the constitutional rights of Dayaks.

KUCHING: The Democratic Action Party Sarawak (DAP) has called on the Sarawak Government to intervene immediately and direct Maktab Rendah Sains MARA (MRSM) colleges in the state to abolish the new (MRSM) Students’ Guidelines introduced.

These guidelines, according to the party, trample on the constitutional rights of Dayaks. For the sake of preserving religious and racial harmony in Sarawak for future generations, it stressed, the Sarawak Government must act decisively and immediately.

“The new MRSM guidelines are a product of Umno’s racist and extremist policies which have caused disunity and disharmony in the peninsula,” said DAP Sarawak Chairman Chong Chieng Jen. “After 58 years of Umno rule in Malaya, racial tension and religious non-tolerance are at their height now.”

Chong, who is also Bandar Kuching MP and Kota Sentosa Assemblyman, was giving his take on the growing controversy in the social media on the new MRSM guidelines.

Sarawakians, he added, “take pride in our racial harmony. Therefore, it’s right that we do not allow Umno to come into Sarawak”.

However, he continued, although Umno may not be physically present in Sarawak, “its policies, if left unchecked, will creep into Sarawak through different government institutions.”

“With the existence of such rules in learning institutions, for example, the undesirable Umno elements and influences would be very much present and alive in Sarawak.”

The Additional Rules under the Guidelines forbids all activities of any religion other than Islam to be carried out in the MRSM colleges. The rules also forbid the exhibition of any symbol of religion other than Islam. Under the same rules, non-halal food is also not allowed to be brought into the MRSM colleges.

Elsewhere, under these rules, non-Muslim students studying at MRSM colleges cannot hold private prayer groups, cannot wear a cross while walking around the colleges, cannot bring their home-cooked food into these colleges, and require permission before they can attend non-Muslim prayer sessions outside the campus.

There are three MRSM colleges in Sarawak i.e. in Kuching, Betong and Mukah.