The Malaysian Insider – 8 hours agoRELATED CONTENT
- ‘I Want to Touch a Dog’ organiser says sorry over furore
Syed Azmi Alhabshi today apologised for the uproar caused by his "I Want to Touch a Dog" event last Sunday, saying he did not intend to insult Muslims but only wanted educate society to overcome their fear of dogs.
Reading from a press statement, Syed Azmi said the event was meant to be educational and not to deviate Muslims from their faith or try to change the Islamic rules.
"I admit that there are weaknesses in the programme. I would like to apologise and I had no intention to cause trouble to anyone," he told a room packed with reporters at the Seri Selangor Gold Club in Sri Damansara today.
"We explained it all throughout the programme. I would like to stress here that it was an educational programme and the 'sertu' ritual (cleansing) was also explained and also performed," he said, referring to the Muslim ritual after one touches a dog.
"I had no intention to deviate the faith and change Islamic teachings or to ridicule Islamic scholars, or to promote liberalism," Syed Azmi added.
The social activist, who was accompanied by lawyer Syahredzan Johan, left abruptly after reading the statement, citing fears for his safety.
Syed Azmi said the event was not held to encourage Muslim ownership of dogs, and said this had been repeatedly stressed in the publicity for the event as well as on its Facebook page since September 11.
On the receiving end of death threats, Syed Azmi has also lodged two reports, one with the police and another with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission on October 22.
Syahredzan said Syed Azmi had at one point received 2,000 messages on his Whatsapp mobile messaging account, as well as threats through phone calls and social media.
"Some of the threats received said they want to break his bones. Others said they were going to kill him if they see him on the street and many more," he added.
In his statement, Syed Azmi said that the organiser had received approval from the relevant parties as the event's purpose was aimed to help people counter a fear of dogs, to teach about dog rescue and to educate Muslims about handling dogs and the required cleansing rituals.
It was also an educational programme teaching people to respect dogs as "Allah's creations", as dogs carry a stigma in Malaysian society.
"We received a letter on how to handle a dog from the Islamic perspective from the Selangor Mufti Department as a guideline in organising the event," said Syed Azmi.
A co-organiser, Norhayati Ismail also told reporters that they had sent a letter to the Selangor Islamic Council (MAIS) on October 3, well ahead of the event on October 19 which was held in Bandar Utama, Selangor.
She said MAIS responded six days later with a letter signed by the Selangor deputy mufti, Datuk Abdul Majid Omar, in which he thanked the organizers for wanting to educate the public about dogs from the Islamic perspective.
Norhayati said Abdul Majid had explained the Islamic view on dogs and also the ways to perform the cleansing ritual, or sertu, properly.
"It was not meant to touch dogs for fun. We have said this many times in our event page and we provided an ustaz who talked about touching dogs and we also distributed educational flyers on the right way of touching a dog," said Hayati.
She said some participants might have arrived late and not known about the awareness talk by the ustaz held earlier that morning.
"We believe that we have achieved the objective, but we also admit that there's a weakness in the event. We did not expect such a huge turnout. We only thought, 300, 500 max," she said.
The event last Sunday drew overwhelming response from Muslims and non-Muslims, with more than 1,000 people attending.
Norhayati said the area where the sertu ritual was being taught was packed with Muslims.
"We had hundreds of people lined up at the counter. We taught non-Muslims as well about touching dogs, the limitations and such. They accepted it well. Some even want to buy the sertu kit," she said.
The bad publicity the event received was caused in part by some media, whom she said "were not even there". The day after the event, Bahasa Malaysia dailies criticised it for having bad intentions and for insulting religious leaders.
As for the name of the event, Norhayati said the organising team stood by it.
"It is not meant to confuse anyone," she said.
On accusations that Syed Azmi was an apostate, she said it was up to others to prove it and not him.
The organising team has so far met with the Selangor Islamic authorities and the police. They will be meeting with the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) on November 6.
At least two police reports have also been lodged over the event, The Malaysian Insider has reported, and police have decided to refer the case to the state Islamic authorities.
While Syed Azmi has received numerous attacks, many have also stood up for him, saying that those who demonised him were the ones bringing shame to Islam instead. – October 25, 2014.
