Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh has gone to court over Kamarul Zaman Yusoff’s two online postings on an alleged attempt to turn Malaysia into a Christian nation.
However, in a counter-filing, the Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) lecturer proclaimed he was ready to defend himself by proving the allegation in court.
DAP lawmaker Yeoh filed the civil action at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Feb 24 this year.
Kamarul has an earlier, separate and ongoing civil defamation action against her over her Facebook post in September 2020.
The lecturer was suing Yeoh over her online response to the former’s posting of a campaign banner featuring her and the words “Peranan Umat Kristian Dalam Pembangunan Negara” (Christians and nation-building).
Earlier on May 17, 2017, Kamarul had also lodged a police report against Yeoh over her personal biography “Becoming Hannah”.
He accused Yeoh, who was then the Selangor state speaker, of alleged proselytisation, claiming she was driving a "Christian agenda".
According to a copy of the statement of claim of her current civil action and sighted by Malaysiakini, the former deputy women, family and community development minister is suing over Kamarul’s two FB posts on May 10 and 17, 2017.
The first post was titled “Hannah Yeoh contoh hipokrasi terbesar DAP”, while the second one was “Laporan polis saya terhadap Hannah Yeoh”.
Yeoh claimed that the two FB posts were very irresponsible, scandalous, vile and intentionally published by Kamarul to inflame hatred and anger against her.
She contended that he had abused his position as an academic in order to issue politically-driven statements against her.
“The plaintiff (Yeoh) pleads that the defendant’s (Kamarul) overall agenda against the plaintiff is malicious and with a political motive,” she claimed.
Through the writ of summons against Kamarul, Yeoh is seeking general, aggravated, and exemplary damages.
The former deputy minister seeks for the lecturer to make an unconditional public retraction of the alleged defamatory statements and an apology.
She also wants a court injunction to prevent him from further publishing any alleged defamatory statements against her.
Ready to prove allegations
However, in his statement of defence filed on March 18 against Yeoh’s civil suit, Kamarul raised the defence of justification.
Under the Malaysian law for civil action, justification is a defence that the statements or allegations are true, and if proven successful in court, this would act as an absolute defence against the related lawsuit.
In relation to the defence of justification, the senior lecturer claimed that his FB post on May 10, 2017, was not referring to Yeoh but to her political party DAP.
Kamarul alleged that the posting was instead about how while DAP was championing secularism that separates politics and religion, there was allegedly also party leaders who were mixing politics and religion.
In also citing justification over his posting on May 17, 2017, Kamarul claimed that his police report was made following Yeoh having lodged her own police report against him in relation to an FB post.
The lecturer alleged that his police report was over her book which was a purported attempt to proselytise Christianity to those outside the faith, including Muslims.
Kamarul also denied his two FB posts were defamatory against Yeoh, further dismissing her claim that they were politically motivated.
“The defendant’s (Kamarul) posting and the police report has nothing to do with politics.
“The posting was merely the defendant’s review and comment about ‘Becoming Hannah’, while the defendant’s (police) report was over several pages in ‘Becoming Hannah’ that contain statements that go against Islamic teachings,” the lecturer contended.
Kamarul also claimed that through the police report, he alleged that Yeoh may have committed an offence under Section 4(1)(a) of Selangor’s Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Amongst Muslims) Enactment 1988, as well as Section 298(A)(1) of the Penal Code.
Section 4 is in relation to the state law offence of persuading, influencing or inciting a Muslim to change faith.
Section 298A deals with the federal law offence of causing disharmony, disunity, or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will; or prejudices, or attempts to prejudice, or is likely to prejudice, the maintenance of harmony or unity, on grounds of religion, between persons or groups of persons professing the same or different religions.
Kamarul also cited qualified privilege and fair comment as a further defence against Yeoh’s defamation suit.
Qualified privilege is a defence that applies in a situation where the words were issued by a person who has an interest or a legal, social or moral duty to do so.
The defence of fair comment is one where the impugned statement was made as a fair comment (rather than as a statement of fact) over an issue of public interest.
When contacted by Malaysiakini this afternoon, Yeoh’s lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo confirmed that the Kuala Lumpur High Court had fixed the matter for case management on April 18.
The counsel, from law firm Karpal Singh & Co, explained that during case management earlier this morning, the court had directed her client (Yeoh) to file a reply to Kamarul’s statement of defence by April 1.
“The court also directed parties to file any interlocutory applications before the upcoming case management date,” Sangeet said.
When contacted by Malaysiakini this afternoon, Kamarul's lawyer Mohd Harris Mohan Abdullah also confirmed the outcome of today's High Court case management.
In 2020, he sued five other DAP leaders over comments critical of him after he lodged the police report. - Mkini
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