PETALING JAYA July 19 – The Najib administration has revealed its true colours in the speed and severity at which it hauled two non-Muslims to court for a tasteless prank while keeping mum over right-wing Malay and Islamic champions who threaten the constitutional rights of minorities, the DAP said today.

The opposition party accused the Barisan Nasional (BN) government of practising double-standards and hypocrisy for throwing the book at two young bloggers who sparked nationwide anger for their controversial Ramadan greeting on Facebook but failing to rein in Perkasa chief Datuk Ibrahim Ali who had called for the burning of

Malay-language bibles, or Minister Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan who had defended the self-declared nationalist’s provocative remarks.

“Clearly BN practices double standards and selective prosecution by only punishing anti-Muslim statements but not anti non-Muslim statements,” the DAP’s secretary-general Lim Guan Eng (picture) said in a strongly worded statement.

“Can Cabinet members, especially non-Muslim Ministers, accept Abdul Rahman’s racist and extremist views that insults against their religion are normal?” he asked, and demanded the Cabinet members censure their colleague for issuing statements that show “no respect for Christians and non-Muslims.

He said the government had shown, through its failure to clamp down on Ibrahim who, that “insults against non-Islamic religions are permitted”.

Lim, who is also Bagan MP, vented outrage at the silence from the ruling coalition in letting slide extremist views he said were an affront to minorities while taking swift action in prosecuting Alvin Tan and Vivian Lee after the bloggers posted a picture said to mock Muslims during the Ramadan fasting month.

He noted that Abdul Rahman had said that Ibrahim had already explained his remark last year was merely to correct the error of printing the said bibles, and burning them was the proper thing to do just as Muslims burn copies of the Quran that have misprints.

Better known as “Alvivi”, a contraction of their two first names, 25-year-old Tan and Lee, 24, had stirred up a hornet’s nest last week when they posted a mock “Selamat Berbuka Puasa” (breaking of fast) greeting on their Facebook page that showed them eating “bak kut teh”, and describing the soupy pork dish as “wangi, enak, menyelerakan” (fragrant, delicious, appetising).

The picture also included a “Halal” logo, although the consumption of pork is forbidden to Muslims.

The couple had first courted controversy over the videos and photographs of their sexual exploits that had been posted on a now-defunct blog.

Yesterday, the duo were slapped with three separate charges under the Sedition Act, the Film Censorship Act, and the Penal Code at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court, but denied bail.

Lim said the DAP was supportive of the decision to prosecute the bloggers for their religious insensitivity that is risking multicultural Malaysia’s interfaith harmony, but challenged the Cabinet’s silence over the local government and housing minister’s defence of extremist Islamists, like Ibrahim.

“For Abdul Rahman to even state that Ibrahim Ali’s threat to burn the Bible was normal is a reflection that both of them share a twisted mind that is anti non-Muslim, which has clearly buried the prime minister’s 1 Malaysia concept,” the lawmaker said.

Lim’s views were echoed by his party colleague and Petaling Jaya Utara MP, Tony Pua, who highlighted the “clear-cut double-standards in Malaysian prosecution system” and proves the hypocrisy of the BN’s “1 Malaysia” slogan.

“It also makes a mockery of our Federal Constitution which provides that all Malaysians are equal before the law,” Pua said.