Enough is enough, deport Zakir Naik, says minister Syed Saddiq
FMT Reporters
-August 14, 2019 6:52 PM
Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman criticises attack on ‘our Chinese and Indian brothers and sisters’ by Dr Zakir Naik.PETALING JAYA: Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman said today he agreed that Dr Zakir Naik should be deported while activist Marina Mahathir joined the chorus of voices slamming Naik for his recent comments.
Syed Saddiq is the first PPBM minister to say the controversial preacher should go.
“An attack against our Chinese and Indian brothers and sisters is an attack against all Malaysians,” Syed Saddiq told reporters in his ministry’s WhatsApp group today.
“It’s ridiculous to even think that my fellow Malaysians are my ‘tetamu’ (guests),” the PPBM Youth chief added. “They are my family, for God’s sake.
“Enough is enough.”
Marina, who is the prime minister’s daughter, meanwhile, tweeted: “That’s rather a lot of my family. Who are you to tell us that?”
They were responding to a media report quoting Naik as snubbing calls for him to leave the country and saying that most Chinese in Malaysia were not born here.
“You know someone called me a guest. So I said, before me, the Chinese were the guests. If you want the new guest to go first, ask the old guest to go back,” Naik was quoted as saying during a talk last Thursday.
“The Chinese aren’t born here, most of them. Maybe the new generations, yes.”
Syed Saddiq, in an earlier tweet, said that Chinese Malaysian were not guests but Malaysian citizens.
The Muar MP said he knew of many Chinese and Indians who were willing to die for Malaysia.
Earlier today, two ministers from DAP said they were leaving it to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to decide on how to deal with Naik, who has also created controversy by questioning the Hindu community’s loyalty to the prime minister.
Human Resources Minister M Kula Segaran and Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo said they had raised the issue with Mahathir and other ministers during the Cabinet meeting this morning.
The duo said they had urged for action to be taken against Naik and that the controversial preacher should not be allowed to remain in the country.
Mahathir, they said, “took note of their concerns”.
Syed Saddiq responded in the affirmative when asked by a reporter if he agreed with the ministers’ call.
Naik, who is wanted by Indian authorities over money- laundering investigations in his home country, India, claimed that Malaysian Hindus were more loyal to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi than to Mahathir despite receiving “100 times” more rights than Muslims in India.
Naik has since accused his critics of quoting him out of context at a lecture he gave in Kelantan.
