Wednesday, 13 August 2008

“I’m against the use of ISA”…

…says PAS Youth leader Salahhuddin Ayub who led the Islamic party’s protestores against the Bar Council organised forum on conversion last Saturday.

Salahuddin was reported by Malaysiakini here as saying that he never called for the use of ISA against council members.

The Kubang Kerian MP denied he had called for Bar Council chief Amiga Sreenevasan’s arrest under the Internal Security Act.

As reported by Malaysiakini

"If the government thinks there has been any wrongdoing (by the Bar Council), there are other ways to arrest the problem," Salahuddin clarified today (Tuesday).

"But I'm not in favour of using the ISA against anyone," he reiterated.

Salahuddin also claimed that he was wronged in the portrayal of his role last Saturday.

He said he was not there to disrupt the proceedings and merely there to ensure that "matters did not go out of hand".

"When I realised that other Muslims would be attending the forum, including PAS and other Islamic NGOs, I joined in.

"However, my attendance was to ensure that PAS supporters did not become unruly and cause any problems," he added.

Forum title not apt

Salahuddin was nevertheless apprehensive of the forum's title and said it was misleading and had caused confusion to the public.

"They should have worded it better instead of calling it ‘Conversion to Islam'," said Salahuddin.

He also suggested that future similar forums should be held behind closed doors.

"I appreciate intellectual discussions but they should not make it public. They should also invite more PAS, muftis and other Islamic scholars."

Another Pakatan Rakyat coalition MP, Zulkifli Noordin, who was among the key players in the demonstration, has since gone missing.

Family, friends and fellow parliamentarians from PKR have also failed to contact him since then.

However, the police have denied that the Bandar Baru Kulim MP was detained for his role in last Saturday's protest.

PKR deputy leader Syed Husin Ali had ticked him off for his role in the demonstration.

Related report Rival groups unified in protest

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now, this youth leader is trying to take the credits despite of the forum held, because then tehy could attract malays attention to his side. I wont' be suprise if he joined the protesters, as he is a muslimin itself. But he had offended his own subordinates opinion which are ANWAR and also his own leader party, Dato' Nik Aziz because they had agreed on the forum being held lately.

The fishy part is the calling of ISA from someone 'unknown'. Salahuddin denied of calling ISA could lead to the government's intention of summoning ISA to arrest Bar council Chief. I think this is part of the opposition's plan to set a death trap to the governmernt.

Unknown said...

I viewed his actions and listened to his speech on youtube and I am pretty satisfied that PAS Youth leader Salahhuddin Ayub had acted appropriately.

Not once did I hear of any utterance of violence from him. In fact he cajoled the obviously very agitated crowd to remain calm.

It's the UMNO linked leaders and the PKR MP who threatened the forum with violence in order to bring it to an abrupt stop.

Eventhough I may not agree with his opinion, I respect the PAS MP's right to peacefully voice out his opinion in a demonstration.