KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 — Khalid Samad has expressed dismay over the sentences imposed by the Shah Alam court on protestors involved in the religiously provocative cow-head protest in his constituency last year.
“No way is it going to be a deterrent,” the Shah Alam MP told The Malaysian Insider when contacted.
“It sends a bad message and falls short of what people were expecting. The actions of the cow-head protestors were extreme and provocative.”
He added that he was not surprised that the punishment was not harsher and said that he has always maintained that the protestors were given encouragement by Umno.
“It shows the true 1 Malaysia spirit,” he said sarcastically.
Khalid had last year blamed Umno for the shocking display of bigotry claiming that the brother of the local Umno chief, Datuk Ahmad Nawawi, had been caught on tape carrying the cow’s head to protest the relocation of a Hindu temple.
He also said that visits to the disputed site by Datuk Noh Omar, the Umno state deputy chief and Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister had inflamed sentiments.
Twelve cow-head protestors were fined RM1,000 each for illegal assembly today by the sessions court in Shah Alam. Two of the protestors were fined RM3,000 for sedition while one of the two was also ordered to serve a week in jail.
The 12 were part of a group which brought a cow’s head to the gate of the Selangor state secretariat building on August 28 last year to protest the construction of a temple in their mainly Muslim-Malay neighbourhood in Shah Alam.
They were protesting the relocation of a 150-year-old Sri Maha Mariamman Hindu temple from Section 19 to their neighbourhood in Section 23.
Eyzva Ezhar Ramly, 31, was charged under the Section 4(1)(a) of the Sedition Act 1948 for “inciting racial animosity with carrying a cow-head” along with the other accused, Mohd Azmir Mohd Zain.
Eyzva will only begin serving his one week prison sentence on August 4 as he is currently in prison for an unrelated offence.
Mohd Azmir was also charged under the same act for carrying and stepping on a cow-head with “the intention to create racial tension”.
Cows are considered a sacred animal to Hindus.
Mohd Azmir was fined RM3,000. Both pleaded guilty to the charges today.
Four others who were also originally charged under the Sedition Act were given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal after they pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Comments
Please refrain from nicknames or comments of a racist, sexist, personal, vulgar or derogatory nature, or you may risk being blocked from commenting in our website. We encourage commenters to use their real names as their username. As comments are moderated, they may not appear immediately or even on the same day you posted them. We also reserve the right to delete off-topic comments