There is one thing which Datuk Seri Najib Razak had done which his five predecessors, the first to the fifth Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahnman, Tun Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir, Tun Abdullah, had not done – to provide a personal education to Malaysians.

First, to educate Malaysians about “kleptocracy”, as Malaysians can undeniably claim credit as having the highest percentage of people in any country in the world who understand the meaning of “kleptocracy” by being a living example of what the US Attorney-General Jeff Sessions recently described as “kleptocracy at its worst” – the monstrous 1MDB international corruption and money-laundering scandal well-known throughout the world but denied as “fake news” by Najib and his cronies.

Now Najib is providing Malaysians a free education to understand the meaning of the idiom “grasping at straws”, when he insisted that I had linked Islam to kleptocracy and wanted an apology from me.

I agree with Najib that anyone, whether me and any other, who linked Islam to kleptocracy owes Islam an unqualified apology for this is not what Islam or any other great religions in the world teaches.

I had yesterday challenged anyone, especially UMNO and PAS leaders, who claim that I had equated Islam with kleptocracy to speak up loud and clear, to identify themselves to Malaysians so that they can be exposed for their intellectual poverty and moral failing for I had never in my life belittled Islam or any of the great religions of the world.

So far, Najib strikes a very solitary lonely self, for there is none even among his cronies who will take up the challenge for the former Prime Minister to tell lies on his behalf.

I challenge Najib to a public forum “Islam is not kleptocracy”. Accept the challenge and our respective representatives can decide on the place, date, time and other details for the public forum.

The ball is in Najib’s court.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Parliament on Monday, 30th July 2018)