GEORGE TOWN: Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng\u2019s chief of staff Jeff Ooi said he never insulted Islam and has withdrawn his statement labelling Jemaah Islah Malaysia (JIM) an extremist organisation upon his boss\u2019 advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon the advise and assurance from the Chief Minister, I have withdrawn the statement and I consider the matter closed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked if he would apologise as demanded by JIM and other Islamic organisations, Ooi merely repeated: \u201cI withdraw my statement\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said since JIM was a registered body, it must accept the fact that it was not exempted from public scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt must also accept that every individual is entitled to his or her basic right to dissenting views and opinions,\u201d he said at a press conference at his service centre here yesterday.<\/p>\n
Ooi had come under fire for calling Penang municipal councillor Mohd Razali Abdullah a member of an Islamic extremist organisation.<\/p>\n
The Jelutong MP said he had never insulted Islam although the matter was played up by the media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI challenge those who accused me to substantiate their allegations. The parties that publicly label me anti-Islam run the risk of being sued because I will have to protect my integrity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ooi reiterated that the state government should remove Mohd Razali from being a committee member of the local authority\u2019s one-stop centre (OSC).<\/p>\n
\u201cHis disruptive and out-of-jurisdiction behaviour has become a political burden to the OSC,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ooi said four major developers had written to complain about Mohd Razali\u2019s misbehaviour during OSC meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to build the confidence of these developers as we want them to help us revive some 20 abandoned projects in Penang,\u201d said Ooi, who declined to name the developers. -The Star Online<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GEORGE TOWN: Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng\u2019s chief of staff Jeff Ooi said he never insulted Islam and has withdrawn his statement labelling Jemaah Islah Malaysia (JIM) an extremist organisation upon his boss\u2019 advice. \u201cUpon the advise and assurance from the Chief Minister, I have withdrawn the statement and I consider the matter closed,\u201d he […]<\/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\/666"}],"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=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}