PETALING JAYA, July 25 ― Simply moving students out of a makeshift eating area inside a primary school’s bathroom only addressed a symptom of a larger problem that the Education Ministry must still resolve, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said today.

Despite the Education Ministry declaring the matter resolved yesterday, Lim today noted that the elephant in the room continues to be ignored.

“The public needs to know how such an incident could have happened in the first place because it is humiliating for children to eat in a shower room that is converted into a makeshift canteen,” the Bagan MP said in a statement.

A day after a firestorm erupted over images depicting primary schoolchildren eating in what was variably described as a toilet, a shower room and a changing room shared on social media sites, Deputy Education Minister P. Kamalanathan declared the issue closed following an apology from the school head.

“As far as we are concerned, the issue is resolved. The headmaster had good intentions but chose a poor location. He has apologised. I too apologise. It won’t happen again,” Kamalanathan told a press conference at the SK Seri Pristana school in Sungai Buloh yesterday.

Today, however, Lim insisted a strong message must be sent that civil servants must respect the sensitivities and rights of all communities in this matter.

“Failure to do so will only accelerate the negative perception that the sensitivities and rights of non-Muslims can be trampled upon without punishment,” the Bagan MP warned.

“Such negative perception can easily turn to a feeling of victimisation by non-Muslims.”

Yesterday, DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua also urged the ministry to enforce guidelines to prevent such instances of racial and religious segregation of students, regardless of intention, saying failure to reverse the tide of “religious hardline” schools would make racial polarisation in Malaysia irreversible.

Aside from the lack of punitive action taken so far, Lim also took issue with Kamalanathan’s “nervous haste” in declaring the matter resolved despite the lingering questions that remain over the incident that had Malaysians up in arms.

“Such nervous hastiness in closing the controversy will be seen as a cover-up unless Kamalanathan can explain why the parents were not informed since March this year that the canteen will be relocated to the shower room because of renovations,” he added.

Lim also noted that despite the official explanation that the children were made to have their meals in the bathroom due to renovations at the canteen, such work was not readily apparent at the site.

The DAP man also further criticised the presence of heavily-armed police officers during the Kamalanathan’s visit to the school yesterday, saying it was “sad” to see that such measures were taken against “angry parents seeking answers and justice”.

On Tuesday, a mother by the name of Guneswari Kelly posted on social network Facebook photographs that appeared to show several non-Muslim children and even adults at a school named as SRK Sri Pristana in Sungai Buloh taking their recess in the lavatory even as the school canteen went unoccupied.

According to her, the children were directed not to use the canteen — shown cordoned off in the pictures — as they would “dirty” the area. Instead, they were told to go to the school’s changing rooms and lavatories, and ordered to stay there for the duration of their recess.

Following the controversy, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also the education minister, confirmed on his Twitter page that the incident will be investigated and punishment meted to those responsible.

The incident is reminiscent of a 2010 incident in Kedah where the headmistress of Sekolah Menegah Kebangsaan Bukit Selambau accused Chinese pupils there of being insensitive towards their Muslim peers by eating in the school compound during the fasting month of Ramadan, before ordering them to “return to China” if they could not respect the culture of other races.

Although the school head later apologised, the incident and others in the same vein led to accusations of perceived tolerance for racism within the government and the civil service that some blamed on programmes conducted by the National Civics Bureau (BTN).