{"id":650,"date":"2009-08-04T08:47:47","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T00:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buletinonline.net\/v7\/index.php\/2009\/08\/pakatan-condemns-racist-utusan-article-calls-it-seditious\/"},"modified":"2009-08-04T08:47:47","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T00:47:47","slug":"pakatan-condemns-racist-utusan-article-calls-it-seditious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/pakatan-condemns-racist-utusan-article-calls-it-seditious\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakatan condemns racist Utusan article, calls it seditious"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Debra Chong<\/address>\n

PETALING JAYA, Aug 4 \u2014 Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders scoffed at an opinion piece published in Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia today accusing the multi-racial three-party opposition bloc of deliberately working to undermine the special rights and privileges of the Malays.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it’s an article which shows the severe desperation of Umno apologists,\u201d PAS central committee member Dr Hatta Ramli told The Malaysian Insider <\/em>in an immediate reaction to the scare-mongering piece written by Noor Azam.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think Malays will be influenced by such racist articles which are intended to split the unity of the Malaysian people,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Kuala Krai MP noted that the public was well-aware of the duplicity of the Barisan Nasional (BN) leadership which had failed to create unity among the different ethnic and religious groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe three main parties in BN are trying to create opportunities for their own leadership, not create a prosperous Malaysia for all Malaysians. That’s why the people are angry at them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He sighed when asked to comment on Noor Azam’s declaration turning public institutions such as the courts, the police and the military into Malay institutions.<\/p>\n

It seemed a familiar and frequently-asked question he had faced before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s the whole problem. It’s as if they are all Malay racial institutions when they are actually Malaysian institutions upheld by everyone,\u201d Dr Hatta said.<\/p>\n

He added that even if the institutions were presently staffed more by the Malays than Chinese or Indian, it is \u201call preferential; these people want to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unwise and it is dangerous to classify the institutions as Malay. Any criticism to these institutions will then be taken as a challenge to the Malay position, which is a lop-sided view and may have been the wrong strategy used in the past to get bigger support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr Hatta assured the Malay community that all their rights and privileges would be protected under PR leadership, a point which his fellow PR national lawmaker from the Chinese-dominated DAP highlighted, referring to the Utusan journalist’s claims that the Malays had lost their special position in three states governed by PR after their landslide win in the March 8 general election last year.<\/p>\n

DAP’s Tony Pua claimed that Penang Malays had benefitted the most out of all the three main races after Lim Guan Eng’s administration ran a programme to give families hit by hardcore poverty a monthly allowance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re the first state to implement kafa allowances for religious teachers,\u201d he said. Pua is also the Penang chief minister’s investment officer based in the Klang Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shows that it does not take a Malay government to benefit Malays,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The DAP publicity secretary objected to the Utusan commentary painting his party as an evil Chinese\u00a0 organisation puppeteering its Malay partners in order to reach its own political gains, including top government posts. -MalaysianInsider<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Pakatan comes to power, the chief posts may be given to non-Malays. But such posts are not the monopoly of any one race, not in our Constitution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pua added that the DAP was not \u201cchallenging\u201d the special rights of the Malays, and especially not the royal institution.<\/p>\n

In his view, the Attorney General should review the \u201cracist and more important than that, seditious\u201darticle, which Pua feels really threatens the security of the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, there should be no selective prosecution,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Debra Chong PETALING JAYA, Aug 4 \u2014 Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders scoffed at an opinion piece published in Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia today accusing the multi-racial three-party opposition bloc of deliberately working to undermine the special rights and privileges of the Malays. \u201cI think it’s an article which shows the severe desperation of Umno apologists,\u201d […]<\/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\/650"}],"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=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}