Malaysia will be laughing stock if Bilqis prosecuted, says Guan Eng
DAP has told police not to take action against dancer Bilqis Hijjas for dropping Bersih 4 balloons at an event in a shopping complex attended by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday. Its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said today that any action against her would be ridiculous, and would give Malaysia a black eye and turn the country into a laughing stock. "It was reported that the police are investigating her under Section 504 of the Penal Code for intentional insult," he said, citing a report in The Malaysian Insider yesterday. "The dancer dropped balloons that had the words 'democracy', 'free media' and 'justice'. Are those words now considered illegal and intentionally insulting? "Are the police also banning such words now? It is senseless. I hope the police will not proceed with ridiculous and premature action that will only give Malaysia a bad name. "If they take action and charge her, they will show that Malaysia is becoming a police state," the Penang chief minister told reporters during a press conference at his office today. The 35-year-old dancer, who is the daughter of prominent architect Hijjas Kasturi, was nabbed by the mall's auxiliary police after she allegedly dropped the yellow balloons which had the words "democracy", "free media" and "justice" printed on them from Level 5 of the complex. Najib and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, had been attending the DiverseCity International Arts festival opening ceremony on the ground floor. Last weekend, hundreds of thousands protested on the streets of Kuala Lumpur in the Bersih 4 rally, demanding reforms and Najib's resignation over the controversies surrounding his administration due to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and RM2.6 billion donation scandals. Lim said if action was taken against the dancer, who likely had no political affiliations, it would only show that Putrajaya was bankrupt of ideas and willing to go to such levels to cover up the issues affecting the administration. He added that if something like that ever happened to him as a government leader, he would accept it instead of seeing it as an insult. "How can you be insulted when people want democracy, free media and justice? These are also principles that we believe in and fight to uphold. Malaysia is a democratic country, is it not? "How can they make such words seem bad, just like how the words 'bersih' (clean) and 'donations' seem to have negative connotations? Something is very wrong. This is a dystopian Malaysia. "Luckily we allow people to freely express themselves and be who they are in Penang. We have managed to show that such freedom works in Penang," he said of his administration in the opposition-led state. – September 1, 2015.
