KUALA LUMPUR, April 11 ― The Barisan Nasional (BN) should check and amend the controversial restrictions placed on non-Muslim places of worship in the states they govern before criticising others, Selangor legislative assembly speaker Hannah Yeoh said today.
Yeoh was responding to MCA criticism at the PKR-DAP-PAS-led Selangor government’s handling of non-Muslim places of worship in the state earlier today.
"I urge BN politicians to fix the said guidelines in their respective states instead of wasting time in futile politicking," she said in a statement.
BN’s Chinese party accused the Selangor DAP leadership of failing to protect the interests of non-Muslims and demanded they resign.
Yeoh ticked off MCA, especially its deputy president, saying Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong “should have done his homework by checking the guidelines in Johor” before making his accusations.
“Or, was there a deliberate intention to mislead the public?" she asked.
Yeoh from DAP pointed out that Pahang, Terengganu and Perlis also have the same guideline as the Selangor government since 2010 and said her political bloc had carried out a study on other states including Johor, Negri Sembilan and Kedah.
Selangor came under fire after its state executive councillor Datuk Teng Chang Khim admitted to an oversight on non-Muslim places of worship to be included in the final version of the manual approved by the state executive council last year.
The new manual, which is the third edition of the guideline, includes a recommendation that non-Muslim places of worship should not be built within 50m of a home owned by Muslims and that planned new non-Muslim places of worship in areas with a multi-racial makeup require the consent of residents within a 200m radius.
There are also height restrictions and also restriction that non-Muslim places of worship cannot be built near commercial areas.
