{"id":2437,"date":"2010-05-08T11:31:55","date_gmt":"2010-05-08T03:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buletinonline.net\/v7\/index.php\/2010\/05\/zaid-to-seek-an-audience-with-king\/"},"modified":"2010-05-08T11:31:55","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T03:31:55","slug":"zaid-to-seek-an-audience-with-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/zaid-to-seek-an-audience-with-king\/","title":{"rendered":"Zaid to seek an audience with king"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"ja-thumbnailwrap thumb-left\" style=\"width: 250px;\">\n<div class=\"ja-thumbnail clearfix\">\n<div class=\"thumbnail\" style=\"position: relative; z-index: 2;\"><a class=\"fancyboxgroup\" href=\"http:\/\/www.freemalaysiatoday.com\/fmt-english\/images\/stories\/photogallery\/zaid1.jpg\" rel=\"jagroupgroup\"> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.freemalaysiatoday.com\/fmt-english\/images\/resized\/images\/stories\/photogallery\/zaid1_250_220.jpg\" border=\"0\" style=\"float: left;\" \/> <\/a><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[ \n\/* <![CDATA[ *\/\njQuery(document).ready(function() {\nif( ! jQuery(\"a.fancyboxgroup\").fancybox({\n\t\timageScale:1,\n\t\t\t\t\t\tcenterOnScroll: 1}) ) \n\t{ document.write(''); }\n});\n\/*  *\/\n]]><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>By Stephanie Sta Maria<\/p>\n<p>PETALING JAYA: Zaid Ibrahim is prepared to seek an audience with the  king to clarify the contents of his recent blog posting which has  sparked outrage among certain quarters.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, Zaid stated that the Sultan of Selangor&#8217;s order  for mosques to not be used as political venues was merely a personal  opinion that carried no legal weight.<\/p>\n<p>This resulted in Perkasa filing a police report against him and  demanding that he apologise to the sultan. Perkasa and a group of NGOs  also burned an effigy of Zaid outside the PKR office in protest.<\/p>\n<p>In a press conference held at his Tropicana residence this morning,  Zaid emphasised that he had no intention of ridiculing or belittling the  sultan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut this is an issue of public interest and as a politician, it is  my duty to give my views,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo I will be writing a letter  to the palace to seek an audience with the king if that would help  clarify this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the Pakatan Rakyat coordinator, he had received a letter  from the Majlis Agama Islam Selangor (MAIS) earlier this week which  expressed disappointment over his apparent ignorance of state laws.<\/p>\n<p>The letter also informed him that under Section 12 of the Selangor  Enactment, the sultan has the power to issue directives and orders that  can be enforced with immediate effect.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMalay rulers as heads of Islam do not have the authority to issue  orders, directives and decrees without first going through the state  assembly and gazetting those decrees,\u201d Zaid said. \u201cWe are a  constitutional monarchy and rulers must abide by the rules of the  constitution at both the state and federal level. So I believe that  Section 12 is not valid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOrders and decrees must be gazetted so that people understand their  scope and exactly what is prohibited. It doesn&#8217;t make sense that laws  debated in Parliament and the state assembly have to be gazetted but  those issued by rulers are excused. The law is applicable to them as  well because it has an impact on the public.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that in a democracy, questioning legal interpretations  should be encouraged instead of ridiculed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn our system of governance, we select members of parliament and  state assemblymen to enact laws. If we allow anyone else to do the same,  then there is no democracy in this country because the people will not  have a say.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993366;\"><strong>&#8216;I will not  apologise&#8217;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Zaid also said that he would not be apologising for expressing his  personal opinion, especially since the demand for an apology came from  Perkasa and not the king.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPerkasa is a strange creature but this is what you get from an  organisation sponsored by Dr Mahathir (Mohamad). And I will not  entertain Perkasa because it is a fascist organisation that doesn&#8217;t  deserve to be entertained.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He slammed the burning of his effigy and the \u201cirresponsible attacks\u201d  by politicians on \u201csomeone who is giving his legal opinion\u201d, stressing  that such acts cannot be condoned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are gangster politics,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are tactics that were  once used by Hitler and Mussolini and are now outdated except in Umno  and Perkasa.\u201d &#8211; FMT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 By Stephanie Sta Maria PETALING JAYA: Zaid Ibrahim is prepared to seek an audience with the king to clarify the contents of his recent blog posting which has sparked outrage among certain quarters. Earlier this week, Zaid stated that the Sultan of Selangor&#8217;s order for mosques to not be used as political venues was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}