PAS wants Muhyiddin to debate with Mat Sabu
Aidila RazakPublished: Sep 6, 2011 7:09 AM | Updated: Sep 6, 2011 11:57 AM
PAS will send a formal invitation to Umno for its deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin to debate the Bukit Kepong incident and the nation's pre-Independence history with the party's deputy president Mohamad Sabu.
PAS will send a formal invitation to Umno for its deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin to debate the Bukit Kepong incident and the nation's pre-Independence history with the party's deputy president Mohamad Sabu.
"We will send the letter to the Umno information chief by the end of the week," PAS information chief Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said at the party headquarters today.
This is in line with the party's stance that Muhyiddin, who is also deputy prime minister, is the best person to debate on the matter, instead of Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, who has offered to debate the issue.
According to Mohamad, who is under fire for saying that Mat Indera, who attacked the Bukit Kepong police station in 1950, is not an insurgent but a freedom fighter, Muhyiddin is most suitable because he has also been his biggest critic.
"He keeps saying that I should repent, so it would be good for me to face him, to learn from Muhyiddin, who is a learned religious scholar.
"Besides, Bukit Kepong is located near his constituency (in Pagoh) so he is best suited," said Mohamad, who is widely known as Mat Sabu.
Compared with Muhyiddin, he said, Khairy had not been too harsh in lambasting him the past 11 days, since the front page report in Utusan Malaysia on his controversial talk at Tasik Gelugor in Penang.
The Umno Youth chief did make some very cutting swipes at Mat Sabu yesterday, when the PAS No 2 said he would not debate Khairy.
Khairy, the MP for Rembau, labelled Mat Sabu an "eunuch" and "coward" and noted that he was "not even a YB".
"Yes, of course I am a man who is afraid. That's why I have been arrested, put in jail and detained under the Internal Security Act," Mat Sabu said snidely of the unsavoury labels.
PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali added that the central leadership had no knowlege of the invitation for a debate purportedly from the Kelantan government, while Mat Sabu said he had not received any such invitation.
Khairy on Sunday claimed to have received an invitation for a debate with Mat Sabu at PAS' "lion's den", the Balai Islam in Kota Baru , at the end of the month and has accepted it.
On a separate matter, the embattled PAS leader confirmed that he would be taking legal action against Utusan Malaysia for its "distorted" report, and would finalise this with his lawyer tonight.
Mat Sabu also urged victims of the Bukit Kepong insurgency, who felt that they had not been duly compensated, to take up the proposal made by a PAS lawyer that they seek damages from the British government.
"The lawyer, who is a Johor native, said he is prepared to take the case to seek compensation, like in the case of the Batang Kali massacre, for which the British eventually paid damages to the victims," he said.
"We will send the letter to the Umno information chief by the end of the week," PAS information chief Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said at the party headquarters today.
This is in line with the party's stance that Muhyiddin, who is also deputy prime minister, is the best person to debate on the matter, instead of Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin, who has offered to debate the issue.According to Mohamad, who is under fire for saying that Mat Indera, who attacked the Bukit Kepong police station in 1950, is not an insurgent but a freedom fighter, Muhyiddin is most suitable because he has also been his biggest critic.
"He keeps saying that I should repent, so it would be good for me to face him, to learn from Muhyiddin, who is a learned religious scholar.
"Besides, Bukit Kepong is located near his constituency (in Pagoh) so he is best suited," said Mohamad, who is widely known as Mat Sabu.
Compared with Muhyiddin, he said, Khairy had not been too harsh in lambasting him the past 11 days, since the front page report in Utusan Malaysia on his controversial talk at Tasik Gelugor in Penang.The Umno Youth chief did make some very cutting swipes at Mat Sabu yesterday, when the PAS No 2 said he would not debate Khairy.
Khairy, the MP for Rembau, labelled Mat Sabu an "eunuch" and "coward" and noted that he was "not even a YB".
"Yes, of course I am a man who is afraid. That's why I have been arrested, put in jail and detained under the Internal Security Act," Mat Sabu said snidely of the unsavoury labels.
PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali added that the central leadership had no knowlege of the invitation for a debate purportedly from the Kelantan government, while Mat Sabu said he had not received any such invitation.
Khairy on Sunday claimed to have received an invitation for a debate with Mat Sabu at PAS' "lion's den", the Balai Islam in Kota Baru , at the end of the month and has accepted it.
On a separate matter, the embattled PAS leader confirmed that he would be taking legal action against Utusan Malaysia for its "distorted" report, and would finalise this with his lawyer tonight.
Mat Sabu also urged victims of the Bukit Kepong insurgency, who felt that they had not been duly compensated, to take up the proposal made by a PAS lawyer that they seek damages from the British government.
"The lawyer, who is a Johor native, said he is prepared to take the case to seek compensation, like in the case of the Batang Kali massacre, for which the British eventually paid damages to the victims," he said.
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