KUALA LUMPUR: Controversial lawyer and activist Siti Zabedah Kasim has pledged to stop the abuse of religion by politicians to "legitimise" their wrongdoings.
She said Pakatan Harapan (PH) refused to touch on such sensitive issues, hence she would do so as the independent candidate for the Batu parliamentary constituency in the 15th General Election (GE15).
"The use of religion in government by politicians is now very common and this was never talked about by Pakatan Harapan.
"In my eyes, the use of religion is the root cause of all the problems in Malaysia.
"Politicians should stop using religion as weapon to to remain in power in order to continue stealing and robbing the country," she said during the "Malaysia di Persimpangan" live talk organised by Malaysia 360 today.
She also wants to separate religion from education.
She said that religious studies should be taken away and more focus should be placed on Science, Mathematics and language studies.
She alluded to her time in school in the 1970s and early 1980s, where she had only one religious lesson per week and it was not compulsory for the students to pass the subject.
She said then, there was more focus on Science and Mathematics, with the addition of Civic classes.
Referring to the incident where a teacher allegedly cut the holy string on an Indian student's wrist and washed off the "pottu" and "vibhuti" on her forehead, she said such an incident should not have happened if the teacher was not influenced by her own beliefs.
"There is no compassion anymore," she added.