Malaysiakini (http://www.malaysiakini.com)
No hudud for non-Muslims: Remember Terengganu?, 3 October 2011
by Norman Fernandez
PAS has criticised DAP for opposing the Kelantan government's intention to implement hudud. PAS mursyidul am Nik Aziz Nik Mat who is also the Kelantan Menteri Besar has been trying unsuccessfully to convince DAP while at the same time promising non-Muslims that hudud laws will not be applicable to them, but only to Muslims. Hadi Awang and many PAS leaders echo similar assurances.
What is forgotten is that, Hadi Awang who was then the Menteri Besar of Terengganu and PAS acting president on July 7, 2002 when winding up the debate on the Shariah Criminal Offences (hudud and qisas) Bill in the Terengganu state assembly declared that “when the time comes, the hudud and qisas law will be extended to all non-Muslims.”.
In fact, Star on July 9, 2002, front-paged 'Terengganu says Islamic laws will eventually cover non-Muslims'. Lest one say that this was false reporting by Star or that Hadi Awang was misquoted, Zahari Mohammad who was then the senior aide to Hadi Awang confirmed with the Associated Press writer Jasbant Singh that Hadi Awang's remarks were correctly reported.
Thus, despite the assurance given by PAS to non-Muslims, once hudud laws are implemented, nothing prevents PAS later from amending the hudud laws to apply to non-Muslims whether they accept it or not. After all, Hadi Awang is on record saying that hudud laws will extend to non-Muslims despite his promise otherwise to non-Muslims now.
So, perhaps it is high time PAS understands DAP's opposition to hudud laws and the insistence of upholding the federal constitution and that the non-Muslims objections are not unwarranted.
(End)
