KUALA LUMPUR, June 18 — Those who raise the spectre of secession from Malaysia are among the biggest threats to the country, Perlis mufti Dr Mohd Asri Zainal Abidin said today in the wake of a Johor prince’s recent Instagram post alluding to the matter.
The popular Islamic scholar said Muslim unity and the country’s stability were at stake if any state were to pull out from the federation.
“Calls by any quarters to secede any state from Malaysia has very serious effects on our federation. This is a major cause that will cause Malaysia’s collapse and also the unity of Muslims and the public in general.
“This is the biggest threat to the stability of Malaysia. History will be melted down and a country that is respected for its peace and development will be buried. May Allah save us all,” he wrote in Bahasa Malaysia on the DrMAZA.com Facebook page.
While Mohd Asri did not name any individuals, his Facebook warning comes just a day after the media highlighted an Instagram post by the younger brother of the Johor crown prince cropped to show the southern state’s right to secede if certain conditions were not fulfilled.
The cleric’s Facebook post has since garnered over 54,000 likes and has been shared by 2,281 users of the social media site at the time of writing.
In April, Putrajaya removed an example of exciting others to demand for a state’s secession from Malaysia as an illustration of seditious tendencies, but said such demands are already seditious in the existing Sedition Act 1948.
Several individuals have been charged in court for allegedly pushing for Sabah’s secession, while Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin said today that Putrajaya told him in a Parliamentary reply that 409 cases were probed and 26 cases brought to court under the Sedition Act during the 2008 to February 22, 2015 period.
Last Sunday, Tunku Idris Sultan Ibrahim issued a reminder through Instagram that the Johor government had joined the Malay federation in 1946 on several conditions, with violation of any of these conditions meaning that Johor would secede from Malaysia.
Among the conditions listed on the photo-sharing app that looked to be a snap of the original federal-state agreement were: making Islam the religion of Johor, the Johor government’s absolute right over water and land issues, the Johor royal house’s right to have its own armed forces and that the Johor constitution cannot be touched.
It is unclear what prompted the Johor prince to make the post on the photo-sharing site, which was taken down yesterday but has since been made available again on his Instagram account @tunku_idris.
Tunku Idris’ older brother Tunku Ismail Iskandar was embroiled in a public spat with Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz after the Umno minister reportedly told the Johor crown prince to stay out of politics or go to a level-playing field where politicians will “whack” him.
Tunku Ismail had commented on Facebook on June 5 about Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s absence at the “Nothing to Hide” forum that was cancelled at the last minute before a confrontation between Najib and his harshest critic, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
