KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 11 — Minister Nancy Shukri took to Twitter to fend off criticism over her explanation this week on why Putrajaya had not charged Datuk Ibrahim Ali for his alleged threat to torch bibles containing the word “Allah”, but started a Twitter war instead.
Under fire from critics, the first-term minister in charge of law repeatedly told Twitter users that she had “never defended” Ibrahim in her recent Parliamentary reply, but was merely passing the message by government agencies on the actions taken against the outspoken Malay rights group leader.
“@jasonbhlee Never defended him. Merely conveying the answer given by agencies on actions taken n why he was not prosecuted,” she posted on her Twitter account @NancyShukri.
The Batang Sadong MP also told Umno’s Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah — who had criticised Putrajaya’s justification that Ibrahim was merely defending the sanctity of Islam — to refrain from criticising her unless he had his facts right.
“@saifuddinabd Before you make your comments, you better find out the facts first. You have all the means to find out,” she wrote on the microblogging site Twitter yesterday.
Saifuddin — who had penned an opinion piece saying that the defence of Islam could never be used to justify the bible-burning threat — retorted on his Twitter account that he had read Nancy’s “text” and “full statement”.
In another tweet, Nancy also told another BN critic to get his facts right: “@tankengliang @saifuddinabd i never said that. You better check your facts first before making such remark.”
Gerakan Youth chief Tan Keng Liang had on October 8 tweeted: “just can’t believe a Minister would claim nothing wrong with threat to burn Bible with the word Allah cause merely defending Islam”.
In one of her tweets, Nancy told Twitter user @ET_WORLD96 to check the facts before commenting, saying: “My grandma was a non Muslim, you think I would do such thing? Wake up”.
The Twitter user had questioned the “theory” of burning bibles to defend Islam, asking rhetorically if any individuals could be allowed to burn the belonging of others to defend their religions.
De facto law minister Nancy told Parliament earlier this week that Ibrahim was not charged over his alleged threat to burn Christian holy scriptures because the police had concluded that the Malay rights group leader was merely defending the sanctity of Islam, and had not intended to create religious chaos with his statement.
The police’s probe had also found that Ibrahim’s statement was directed at individuals who had purportedly distributed bibles containing the word “Allah” to students, including the Malays, at Penang’s Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Jelutong, Nancy had said.
On Thursday night, Nancy explained that the Attorney-General Chambers had decided not to charge Ibrahim “after considering the outcome” of the police probe, also saying that this was because the context of his speech was in line with the spirit of the Federal Constitution’s Article 11(4).
While Article 11 guarantees the constitutional right of all Malaysians to freely profess and practise their faith, Article 11(4) says that state laws or laws for the federal territories “may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam”.
