KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 8 — DAP’s Teresa Kok challenged the Sabah and Sarawak governments today to provide evidence that her presence in the east Malaysian states would threaten public peace and harmony.
She said without proof, both governments should remove her name from their list of those banned from entering their states.
“I categorically deny that I have ever made any speech or carried out any activity that has threatened Sarawak’s racial and religious harmony. Neither do I have any such a plan,” she said in a statement here.
“It is therefore most baffling and totally unfair that I have been banned from entering Sarawak, which is part of Malaysia.”
Kok was responding to Sarawak tourism minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Openg who said yesterday that any individual seen as a threat to racial and religious harmony would be barred from entering the state, regardless of their political affiliations.
The Seputeh MP said the same today to the Sabah government, which had stopped her earlier this week from entering Sandakan upon landing there from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2).
She noted that after the incident, she had challenged Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman to publish the intelligence records that her ban was premised on to prove she was a threat to state security.
But Kok said today that it was doubtful that the state government would be able to provide such proof.
She insisted that the ban to Sabah was politically motivated due to her work as an opposition lawmaker, which she said was likely viewed as a threat to the Barisan Nasional (BN) leadership.
“Similarly, the Sarawak state government’s ban on me is not because I have become or am a threat to the racial and religious harmony in the state, but because I am viewed as a political threat,” she said.
“Sarawak and Sabah governments must either prove that I am a threat to the peace and harmony in their states or they must immediately lift the unfair and politically motivated ban imposed on me.”
