Let sanity prevail, PPBM man says amid row over religious insults

PPBM supreme council member Tariq Ismail.

PETALING JAYA: A PPBM supreme council member has urged the government to table the Anti-Discrimination Bill to curb mudslinging and insults hurled against races and religions.

Tariq Ismail called for “a clear set of rules” so that “sanity will prevail”.

“Many insult Islam and many Muslims insult other religions but when is this mudslinging going to end? I am a Muslim, it hurts me when others insult my religion. At the same time, I am equally insulted when fellow Muslims insult other religions,” he told FMT when commenting on remarks by Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin.

Asri took potshots at the Pakatan Harapan administration following the arrest of an associate, preacher Muhammad Zamri Vinoth Kalimuthu, who allegedly insulted Hinduism.

Asri had claimed that Muslims were allowed to be bullied under the present government.

“You can pray continuously but there is no point that when you leave the room, you forget what you prayed for,” Tariq, the grandson of former deputy prime minister, the late Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, said.

“This applies not only to Muslims but to others as well.”

Tariq said he did not want to judge whether Asri was right or wrong but added that Putrajaya should table the Anti-Discriminatory Bill if it wanted to be a “government of all Malaysians”.

“Maybe then sanity will prevail,” he said.

In July last year, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of religious affairs Mujahid Yusof Rawa said the Anti-Discrimination Bill would be tabled at the Dewan Rakyat meeting in March but it did not take place. - FMT