After reading Dissapointed's letter titled "Don't fall for PAS's 'flagrant' promises", I can conclude is that he has got some of the facts wrong, and most of his points are based on assumptions.

In the Pakistani issue, he said that "Whether it was tribal law or not, this unforgivable brutality occurred in a country that subscribed to syariah law", but in reality, these regions are given autonomy to practice tribal law as the tribal influence is very strong and the fact is, the Pakistani government did intervened and prosecute those who raped the girl (the village chief and the accuser's family members) and this was widely reported in the newspapers.

For your information, Disappointed, Islamic law will not tolerate this kind of justice. The judge who sentenced the girl to be raped (and he himself raped the girl) can be punished under hudud and he might even get the death sentence by stoning.

Disappointed also said: "With a government voted into power that you find too late not to be what has been promised, the problem of voting it out may be enormously more problematic just throwing away a bunch of blooms. Don't forget, PAS is Islam itself, and attempting to vote it out from government may be anti-Islamic for non-Muslims and an apostate act for Muslims."

This argument is not based on facts, but simply an assumption. If you want the real fact, please go to Kelantan and Terengganu and find it yourself. You can based your arguments from your experiences there. By the way, PAS does not regard those who did not vote them as anti-Islamic or apostates.

About the AKP government in Turkey, they have opted for a "secular Islam" because of the intolerance of the secularists in Turkey such as the army and the courts (which are secular fanatics). Remember, one of its prime ministers was jailed and the party was banned simply because he made a speech calling for Islam to be practiced. That's why AKP had to be more careful with the secularists and declared themselves as "secular Islamic". If not, they will be jailed and AKP banned.

Americans separate the state and religion based on their own experience even though they are very religious themselves. This is because they are made up of many different sects - Quakers, Puritans, Catholics, Protestants, Mormon Amish and others - which were then being prosecuted by the kings in Europe (the state and church had already been separated in Europe).

So in order to share the administration of the state, they have to tolerate one another and separate state and religion more than what was allowed in Europe. If the state is wholly controlled by one of these sects, I believe that they would have a religious-based government. But because of the diversity in religious sects, they have to consider a government which separates state from religion.

In the Malaysian context, there are states that has more than 90 percent Muslims and they should be given the opportunity to exercise their right to have an Islamic government.

As we all know, Umno is a racist party, but why did they share power with other race-based parties such as MCA or MIC? It is because they don't have enough seats to control this country. So will PAS. PAS will only be contesting in about one-third of the parliamentary seats. So how will they rule this country even if they win all these seats? It is through power sharing too, with Keadilan or maybe even DAP. Both DAP and Keadilan will help balance PAS.

For the states controlled by PAS (those with 90 to 100 percent of the seats), they should be given their chance to administer the state according to their wishes, i.e. having an Islamic state and hudud. If we respect the rights of minorities, then we should also have to respect majority Muslim's rights too. If not, Muslims will be denied their right to practice Islamic law.