Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) has taken Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to task for going soft and choosing a National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) consisting of liberals and non-Muslims.

Irked by what it perceived as NUCC's criticism of Selangor Islamic Affairs Department’s (Jais) raid of Malay-language Bibles last Thursday, Isma said something was not right about the NUCC. The Islamic rights NGO questioned Najib's membership choice in this important task force, which would advise him on national unity issues.

"Before this Najib has stated that he rejects liberalism and will defend the Muslim exclusive rights to ‘Allah’.

"The statement made by NUCC reflects the fact that something not normal has happened to the thinking of Datuk Seri Najib," said Isma's president Abdullah Zaik Abdul Rahman (above) in a statement.
 
In its first press conference yesterday, NUCC chairperson Samsudin Osman said he regretted Jais’ action but stopped short of calling it wrong. He was speaking after the council's first closed-door meet.
 
Abdullah fumed that such statement reflected that the 29-member council was made up of mostly non-Muslims or liberals. Isma took note that among the NUCC members are Marina Mahathir, Lee Lam Thye, Ramon Navaratnam, Dr Micheal Yeoh Oon Kheng, Johan Jaafar,  Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa,Saifuddin Abdullah, Anas Zubedy, Wardina Saffiyah, Mohamed Maliki Mohd Rapie and Jagir Singh.

NUCC also said it was not confident of solving the Allah row. However, Samsudin qualified that the NUCC, at its meeting yesterday, did not discuss the use of ‘Allah’ but rather the raid on the Bible Society Malaysia and confiscation of more than 300 copies of the Bahasa Malaysia and Iban Bible by Jais on Jan 2.