PAS today criticised several Chinese newspaper dailies for wrongly attributing statements touching on religious sensitivities to a party representative.

PAS president Fadzil Noor said he has directed the party's state assembly representative for Semantan, Idris Omar, to rectify the situation as he (Idris) was reported to have said in the Pahang state assembly yesterday that "if PAS rules, all religious statutes of other religions will be destroyed".

He said Idris, who is also Pahang's opposition leader, has been told to take legal action against the newspapers if the clarifications were not forthcoming.

"The reports painted PAS as being culturally and religiously intolerant towards other races and cultures other than Islam," said Fadzil, in a press statement distributed to reporters at the Parliament lobby.

"The reports also pictured PAS as being similar to the Taliban government in Afghanistan which was slammed recently for destroying the Bamiyan statues of Buddha," he added.

Major Chinese dailies today reported that Idris had said in the Pahang state assembly yesterday that there would be destruction of Buddhist statues if PAS came to power in Pahang.

Nanyang Siang Pau quoted Idris as saying that "if PAS comes to power one day, all the Buddhist statues including the Kuan Kong will be destroyed".

The Sin Chew Jit Poh and the China Press' reports also said that Idris stressed in the assembly that if PAS were to rule the state, it would destroy all statues prayed to by non-Muslims.

Irresponsible reporting

Fadzil claimed that it was MCA state assembly representatives who made the conjecture in their accusations against PAS during debate time.

"Such reporting is irresponsible and a very dangerous insinuation as our PAS representative did not make the statement at all," said Fadzil, adding that such reporting could lead to racial discontent.

"Barisan Nasional representatives and the newspapers are so irresponsible that their actions are a danger to unity among the races," he added.

Fadzil urged the newspapers involved to clarify and apologise for their mistakes.

"Refer to the entire record of the proceedings in the Pahang state assembly yesterday and apologise for your mistakes," he said.

"We hope this incident will not be repeated in a multi-racial community which we are trying our best to unite through the efforts of Barisan Alternatif," he added.