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Children ask their fathers to bring down the picture of the Pharaoh when they return home
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With
additional reporting by Sohaib Jassem, IOL Malaysia correspondent
KUALA
LUMPUR, October 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The Malaysian
government announced that it has frozen financial aids for more than
500 religious schools in Malaysia, accusing the schools’ authorities
of breeding hatred of the government among the students.
Mahathir
Mohammad, the Malaysian Prime minister, spoke on Friday, October 24,
announcing that the government has stopped giving per capita grants to
religious schools after some of the schools were found to be used for
politics, Malaysian news agency, Bernama, reported.
The
Prime Minister said the government took the decision to study the
status of the schools to ensure they were genuinely teaching religion,
said Bernama.
“At
the moment, we have stopped assistance to all religious schools until
we can distinguish which is religious school, (and) which is political
school,” he told reporters after chairing the supreme council
meeting for his ruling party United Malays National
Organization (UMNO).
“UMNO
members’ children who go to these schools have asked their fathers
to bring down the picture of the firaun (Pharaoh) when they returned
home.
“They
have learnt this in school, this is not found in the religious
studies,” he said, according to Bernama.
Mahathir
said the per capita grants to the schools, which have been stopped for
sometime, would only resume after the government was satisfied that
the schools really taught religion.
He
said problems in religious schools were part of the discussions in
Friday’s supreme council meeting. “The government feels these
schools are not religious schools but actually political schools,”
he said, reported Bernama.
Mahathir
said teaching the pupils to bring down the photograph of a person,
said to be the Pharaoh, was not a religious teaching and hence, the
government cannot extend aid to such schools, the agency said.
Asked
whether the government would draw up a syllabus for the schools, he
said, the syllabus had been provided but the schools never used it. He
refused to name the group which used the schools for political aims.
In
a reaction to Mahathir’s decision, the spiritual leader of the opposition
Islamic party, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), Nik
Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, said Sunday the government’s move to cut off
state funding to privately-run religious schools will result in PAS
supporters hating the ruling party, UMNO.
Appealing
to Mahathir to review the move, he said it would affect all students
in the schools irrespective of whether their parents were supporters
of UMNO or PAS, reported Bernama.
“Besides
that, it may raise tension and prompt accusations from PAS supporters
that UMNO is not serious about its declaration that Malaysia is an
Islamic state,” he told reporters when met at his residence, the
agency added.
Ever
since 2001, these schools have become a front of conflict between the
opposing Islamic parties and the ruling government.
