Anti-hudud: Sabah MCA targets million signatures

“If you implement Hudud law today, you can forget about foreign investment tomorrow. The bursa will go south and our economy will go down! We can’t take this type of risk as a nation.”

KOTA KINABALU: MCA divisions in Sabah will spend the next 10 days actively campaigning to secure one million signatures protesting PAS’ bid to implement hudud law.

Sabah MCA Liaison advisor Paul Kong Sing Chu said the local signature drive is in tandem with the party’s national level efforts initiated by MCA Wanita.

“More than 130 Sabah MCA divisions assembled at Wisma Kinsabina, Penampang, to take part in the MCA Wanita campaign of Anti-Implementation of the Pas Hudud Law in Malaysia, recently.

“Our aim is to obtain one million signatures from Malaysians to show support to the campaign. I urge all peace loving Malaysians who wish to see the country remain as a secular state to lend their support to the campaign without hesitation, “ he said.

Kong said, of the 56 member countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), only 14 of them have implemented the hudud law which have proven to be unsuccessful.

Those countries include Pakistan, Afganistan, Sudan, Somali, Nigeria and Iran, among others with Brunei, Sabah’s immediate neighbouring country, having commenced the first phase of the its hudud law implementation earlier this month.

“This shows that, response from the international communities have been very negative to the extent that many well know global celebrities and successful entrepreneurs have publicly announced their protest by boycotting hotels and businesses owned by Brunei and its Sultan,” he said.

Kong further reminded that the the founding fathers of Malaysia have unanimously agreed that Malaysia must be a secular and not an Islamic state.

The implementation of the hudud law as proposed by PAS would transformed Malaysia into an Islamic state.

“If hudud is implemneted it will contravene the Federal Constitution and also against the Malaysia Agreement 1963 when the two Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak together with Singapore came together with Malaya to form the Federation of Malaysia,” Kong said.

Statements in the past by first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and also by Tun Hussein Onn and Tun Dr Mathathir Mohamad have reinforced the secular nature of Malaysia as a nation.

Kong reiterated that MCA’s stand was not against Islam as the country’s official religion.

“But we are strongly against the implementation of the PAS hudud law in Malaysia as it will have far reaching consequences for Malaysia as a secular state.

“The existence of two legal systems – the syariah and the civil laws – in a multi-racial country like Malaysia, will bring untold social and legal problems that will plunge the country into disarray,” he added.

Apart from that, as one of the top 20 trading nations of the world, Malaysia could ill afford to lose out on foreign investments which would have been diverted to other more democratic countries.

Quoting human right activist and Muslim lawyer Azahar Harun who stated during the “Hudud – A Nation At Crossroad” forum organised by the MCA last Friday, he said: “…foreign investors will flee Malaysia the next day if the hudud law is implemented and Bursa Malaysia will crash in an instant.

“If you implement Hudud law today, you can forget about foreign investment tomorrow. The bursa will go south and our economy will go down! We can’t take this type of risk as a nation.”

Nevertheless, Kong, who is also Penampang MCA chairman, felt assured that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had reportedly said that hudud will not be implementation in Malaysia.

Najib had given this assurance in Kampar, Perak recently. He said the Government will not enforce the hudud law in Malaysia as although it was accepted in Islam, its implementation must be based on reality.

He added that Pas leaders had raised the issue to divert the rakyat’s attention as if it is championing hudud law to win the hearts of the Malays.

FMT Borneo Plus