KUALA LUMPUR, April 12 ― The Selangor government has suspended the controversial guidelines on restricting new non-Muslims places of worship, state executive councillor Datuk Teng Chang Kim said today.
He added that the decision was reached during the weekly state executive council meeting today.
“The exco meeting this morning decided to suspend the enforcement of the controversial provisions in the third edition and to review the provisions,” he told Malay Mail Online in a Whatsapp text when contacted.
Selangor came under fire earlier this week after Teng 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 manual 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 restriction that non-Muslim places of worship cannot be built near commercial areas.
The manual also drew criticism from MCA, which accused Selangor DAP of failing to protect the interests of non-Muslims and demanded their leaders resign.
DAP representative and Selangor Speaker Hannah Yeoh responded by pointing out that Pahang, Terengganu, and Perlis have the same guidelines as Selangor since 2010.
She also told the Barisan Nasional to stop politicising the issue and fix the said guidelines in the states it rules.
