JOHOR BARU, May 16 — Labis MP Pang Hok Liong today denied that he gave a political speech at a mosque in his constituency recently that had earned him a rebuke from Johor ruler Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar.
Sultan Ibrahim had earlier in a statement said he had received complaints from the community there who were uneasy that Pang had reportedly given a speech in the mosque.
This was despite repeated reminders from him and the Johor Islamic Religious Department for mosque administrators to bar politicians from using such venues for political activities, he said.
The DAP lawmaker told Malay Mail that he was invited by Tenang assemblyman Mohd Solihan Badri, who is also the Public Works, Infrastructure and Transportation Committee chairman, to attend the handing over of allocation for a mosque on May 10.
“I only gave a speech thanking the mosque committee for hosting me and also an announcement of my RM1,000 allocation to the mosque as it is in my Labis constituency,” said Pang when contacted.
His comment came after a picture of him speaking at a mosque in Labis went viral on a known anti-Pakatan Harapan Facebook page yesterday, where he was degraded.
Pang said as the elected parliamentary representative he had pledged to give out RM1,000 to mosques and RM500 to all suraus in Labis.
“Never did I gave a political speech in the mosque at that time,” he said.
Pang also said he was unhappy with how the incident that was sparked by posting the Facebook page ended up with him being insulted as a dog in a mosque.
He said he will lodge a police report on Saturday over the alleged insult.
Sultan Ibrahim described Pang’s act was a serious infringement of the sanctity of the mosque, and threatened the position of Islam in the state.
“This is a violation of the boundaries which I have set as the head of Islam in Johor,” said Sultan Ibrahim, adding it was is a serious violation of the sanctity of the mosque, thus denying the position of Islam as the religion in the state.
