BY: CHRISTOPHER FERNANDEZ

The Malaysian Religious Affairs Minister has drawn flak and raised the ire of non Muslims by suggesting that Jakim enforce mandatory halal certification of food outlets that do not serve pork and alcohol.

In response, Seputeh MP, Miss Teresa Kok stated that such a move imposed significant burdens on small businesses, restricts consumer freedom and may also be seen as clashing with the country’s cultural diversity.

For this retort, there was surprisingly swift retaliation by the prime minister who unleashed the police to open an investigation on Miss Kok, a move seen by independent analysts as a threatening act of intimidation.

In Malaysia’s police state, where there permeates a culture of fear, any opposition or dissent is immediately classified as seditious especially when it touches on Muslim sensitivities in the country.

Miss Kok’s brave deed is indeed heroic, as the long suffering and oppressed non Muslim Malaysian minority have been often targeted and been made to be forcibly compliant to what is viewed as ongoing Islamisation exercises.

While non Muslims respect the religion of Islam and Muslims, they, in return, ask for due recognition of their civil rights and liberties and see this measure by Jakim as another show of their idiocracy.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE

** The views expressed on this opinion is of the writer and not the publisher