KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian public are matured enough not to be affected by the action of a public university lecturer who lodged a police report against Selangor State Assembly speaker Hannah Yeoh over her biography.
Gerakan vice-president Datuk Dr Dominic Lau said Malaysians have come a long way in fostering multi-racial harmony, learning to respect one another and accept the diversity in the community.
“While people have the right to be indignant at the lecturer for saying that the biography allegedly involved elements of proselytization, let us remember that it is the action of one person.
“An individual’s action by no means reflects the person’s community.
“Let us not be carried away by the folly of his action, lest it should defeat us Malaysians by causing prejudice against groups and individuals simply because of race and religion,” he said in a statement this evening.
He cautioned that such stereotypes and bias might lead to a tense atmosphere which might be vulnerable to exploitation by irresponsible parties.
Lau was referring to Universiti Utara Malaysia’s Institute for Malaysian Political Analysis (Mapan) director Dr Kamarul Zaman Yusoff who lodged the report at the Changlun police station in Kedah, this morning.
Kamarul said he decided to lodge the report to counter Yeoh’s police report filed against him on Monday over his recent Facebook posting.
“This is a counter report against Yeoh who had lodged a report against me on Monday, claiming that I had defamed her,” he said when contacted.
Kamarul claimed that Yeoh may have broken the law under Section 4(1)(a) of the Enactment of Controls and Sanctions (Expansion of non-Islamic Religions) of Selangor 1988 by trying to incite Muslims to become a member of a non-Islamic religion.
He is also urging the police to investigate Yeoh under Section 298 (A)(1) of the Penal Code for trying to disrupt the country’s harmony by using religion.
Kamarul also claimed that Yeoh’s book, “Becoming Hannah”, should not be sold on open shelves and must be restricted to certain sections as the book has many quotes from the Bible.
He had since drawn the ire of Netizens who verbally thrashed him as being a religious bigot who is insecure of his own faith.
Netizens also pointed out that the book is an autobiography and he is not forced to read it.
They also lambast him as being a shame to the Malaysian public education system and a liability to his students.