KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 — Newly-appointed Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh should withdraw the suspension of the two International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) students to protect “intellectual freedom”, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang said.
“I call on Idris Jusoh to advise university administrators in the country to respect the intellectual freedom of students and to stop treating them as children if Malaysia truly aspires to achieve university academic excellence in the world,” Lim said in a statement today.
“Idris must send a clear and unmistakable message that the new priority of the new Higher Education Ministry is to restore the academic and intellectual excellence of Malaysian universities, whether of academic staff or students, and not to continue to treat universities as factories to produce graduates based on scrolls of paper.”
Earlier this week, IIUM suspended Hanif Mahpa and Afiqah Zulkifl for organising a forum on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in which they invited PKR’s Rafizi Ramli to be one of the speakers.
During the forum in May, Rafizi’s microphone was snatched while mid-speech by the university’s security which halted the event. Hanif, who also is the student body council president had to call off the event.
