Malaysia will face a very difficult 2014 and may even face a Syria-type crisis if people are allowed to openly annoy each other, ex-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.
 
Mahathir said that he agreed with the Home Ministry's ban on human rights NGO Comango and also Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) actions last Thursday to take away Malay-language bibles belonging to Christians.
 
Both controversies were sparked by liberal groups who were out to test the boundaries of their new found freedom and were ill intentioned, the senior statesman said.
 
"If you break the law, people who enforce the law will take action," Mahathir told reporters at Angkasapuri in Kuala Lumpur.
 
"Before this controversy came up, I don't think Jais will ever take the Bible belonging to the Christians. You purposely come up with something to annoy people. It is not religious.

"It is just a means to annoy people and be uncaring about other people's sensitivities. If you start running down other religions, what will happen to this country. You want this country to be like Syria or something?"

Syria has undergone civil war since 2011 after protesters demanded the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has held the presidency in Syria since 1971, as well as the end of Ba'ath Party rule, which began in 1963.

According to BBC reports, there are believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters trying to overthrow the government, following the clampdown of an Arab Spring-style demonstration in April 2011.

While noting that for 50 years the country faced no major inter-ethnic problems, Mahathir still labelled Malaysia "an unstable country".

"Everybody said when we gained independence (from the British) the Malays will seize the properties of non-Malays and exploit the non-Malays. And this happened in many countries - it happened in Myanmar, in African countries. When they became independent, they kicked out what they called ‘immigrants’.

"You want freedom, you want to be liberal, you must understand how to handle this things...races are very sensitive here. Religions are very sensitive issues here." he said.

He shirked away the question when a reporter asked him about his own daughter and activist Marina Mahathir (far right) who stood in solidarity with Christians and moderate Muslims in condemning Jais' move on Sunday.

"Maybe she feels the actions taken were too harsh. That's her... I don't know her. Her name is Marina," Mahathir said in his usual acerbic style.

‘ISA needed for some extremists’

Those who supported the cause of lesbian, gays, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) were also among the minorities which Mahathir said didn't quite get true freedom.

"And then they are going to walk naked in the streets... do you want?" he asked.
 
Mahathir also said that the abolished Internal Security Act (ISA), which allowed detention without trial, could prove useful now.
 
"I think for some of these extremists, we need the ISA," he said.

“We don't need the ISA for people like me, I am a very nice person. For some extremist who go around saying nasty things, we need the ISA," he added.

During his 22 years in power, Mahathir had stunned the nation with his dragnet codenamed “Ops Lalang” in 1987.

This had given birth to NGOs championing human rights and pushing for the government  to abolish the ISA, which it did in 2012. The last six detainees, under the law which allowed two years detainment without trial, were finally set free last Sunday.

But the movement against the ISA (GMI) had said that the government has since replaced the ISA with new draconian laws.