I call on the Sarawak and Sabah Chief Ministers to stop their abuse of immigration autonomy powers in illegally and undemocratically barring Pakatan Harapan leaders from entry if they are serious in wanting the Federal Government to fully respect both the word and spirit of Malaysia Agreement 1963.
Under the 1963 Malaysia Agreement which conferred immigration autonomy powers to Sarawak and Sabah, it was clearly stipulated that no Malaysian from Peninsular Malaysia should be barred from entry into Sarawak and Sabah in pursuit of “legitimate political activities”.
In barring Pakatan Harapan leaders from entry into Sarawak and Sabah although in pursuit of “legitimate political activities”, the Sarawak and Sabah Chief Ministers would be abusing their powers under Malaysia Agreement 1963, which would undermine their legitimate demands for the full recognition and restoration of the rights of Sarawak and Sabah under the Malaysia Agreement 1963.
The second point I want to make is with regard to what the former Inspector-General Tan Sri Rahim Noor said in Kota Kinabalu at a forum “Malaysia in the Future” on Tuesday. Rahim Noor warned Umno its concessions to PAS, particularly over the controversial Islamic penal code hudud, could lose it Sabah and Sarawak support.
He said that the federal government would not only lose the goodwill and support of the East Malaysian states, the latter may even agitate to leave the Federation if the government submits to PAS’ demands to implement hudud just to ensure that Umno remains in power.
In his speech, the former Inspector-General of Police stressed that the Federation of Malaysia was never meant to be an Islamic country because if it was, Sabah and Sarawak would never have agreed to it.
He said when the idea of Malaysia was mooted, religion was the main issue addressed by the Cobbold Commission.
“The people in the Bornean states, all of them, regardless of race and religion, did not want an official religion for the new federation.
“The demand was reasonable. After all, there are many Muslim-majority countries in the world that do not have Islam as their official religion, for example Egypt and Indonesia, a country with the highest number of Muslim’s in the world.”
I call on both the Sarawak and Sabah Chief Ministers to publicly endorse the position of the former Inspector-General of Police, for it concerns one of the fundamental nation-building principles of the country as well as one of the fundamental terms and conditions for Sarawak and Sabah’s agreement to form the Malaysian Federation in 1963.
Are both the Sarawak and Sabah Chief Ministers prepared to do this?
[Media Conference Statement on arrival at the Kuching International Airport on Sunday, 24th September 2017 at 1.30 pm]