KUCHING, Dec 6 — Sarawak For Sarawakians (S4S), a pro-autonomy advocacy group today denied claims that it is a threat to national security.

Its leader Peter John Jaban said S4S was only asking for the return of the state's rights which have been eroded, similar to what the state government has been saying all this while to Putrajaya.

"Is Ahmad Zahid claiming that the state government is itself a threat to the security of the nation, since they are asking for exactly the same thing, going so far as to send a delegation to London to retrieve copies of migrated documents related to state’s rights? " he said, referring to a mission led by Assistant Minister of Law, State-Federal Relationship and Project Monitoring Sharidah Hasidah Syed Aman Ghazali last July.

Jaban was responding to deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's threat to take severe penalty against S4S group for allegedly promoting secession from Malaysia.

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He also asked Ahmad Zahid, who is also the home minister, to cite a single example of public order offence committed in the name of S4S which would justify him curtailing a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution.

Jaban asked if the deputy prime minister was going to arrest every car owner in Sarawak displaying the S4S logo or every person wearing the T-shirt emblazoned with the logo.

"If that is his intention, then he better starts building bigger jails because he is talking about a huge percentage of the state's population," he asked, stressing that prior to the 2016 state election, the Merdeka Centre poll found that 47 per cent of state's 2.6 million population supported S4S.

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