KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 24 ― DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng today slammed Datuk Azwanddin Hamzah, over provocative speeches the latter made recently, which he said was aimed at causing bloodshed between the Malays and ethnic Chinese.
In a statement, the DAP secretary-general office said the president of Malay rights group Jaringan Melayu Malaysia was trying to incite the Malays to hate the ethnic minority and the Pakatan Harapan government.
“After going through the speech, it is very difficult to reach a conclusion, other than assuming that the speech was aimed at provoking dissatisfaction and hatred from the Malay community towards the Chinese generally…
“And towards the Pakatan Harapan government, and the ethnic Chinese politicians specifically, as well as to cause unrest and bloodshed between the Malay and ethnic Chinese races,” the statement said.
It also said that Azwanddin had repeatedly called for a repeat of the bloody May 13 racial riots to target the ethnic Chinese.
Azwanddin was recently appointed the adviser of Gagasan 3, a loose coalition that was formed with the sole intention of “declaring war” on DAP, claiming the latter is the dominant voice in Putrajaya.
The coalition is headed by Raggie Jessy, a blogger known for his controversial Third Force blog. His deputy is Amran Ahmad Nor, reportedly a disgruntled former DAP publicity unit employee, and a former Utusan Malaysia journalist.
Two days ago, Lim had threatened to take Gagasan 3, to court if it does not apologise for making racially charged allegations against him.
He said he will lodge a police report against the group over their allegations, including claiming that he had diverted RM200 million for Malay students under the government entrepreneurship programme, MaGIC, to Chinese temples.
He said the group’s claims were dangerous as they touched on racial sensitivity amongst Malaysians.
Other allegations made by the group against Lim were that he had received visits by monks at his office on a daily basis and on DAP raising the United Nation’s International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) issue.
In the statement today, the DAP secretary-general office said that Azwanddin's statement was also “beyond rational thought”, pointing to the latter's allegations on the diversion of the RM200 million fund to Chinese temples.
“Not stopping at that, Azwanddin's overactive imagination was also evident, when he claimed that in the Finance Ministry and in the Prime Minister's Office, Buddhist monks turned up in droves to pray at every floor of the buildings, each day.
“Logically, this statement is not fit for debate, unless the monks meant are invisible and are not able to be seen by the thousands of civil servants working in both the departments,” it said, adding that the statement was therefore racially motivated, and was an assault on another religion.
