I refer to your say report entitled ‘The debate on hudud once again’, with each side of the religious divide saying totally different things. Yes once again the debate on hudud rages on, with PAS sworn to its hudud agenda, particular its spiritual leader Nik Aziz Nik Mat, who at many times were wrongly judged by non-Muslims as liberal and an open-minded Tok Guru.

This is because a lot of so-called political enthusiasts among the non-Muslims are only paying attention to local politics after the March 2008 political tsunami. Before that they had little or no knowledge of what PAS and Nik Aziz stands for.

To PAS and Nik Aziz hudud is the god-assigned agenda, where all Muslims must support, otherwise they are labelled as infidels. Now that PAS has made its unwavering stand again and has also openly vaulted that hudud laws are strictly meant for Muslims, it opens up the golden opportunity for non-Muslims to make a thorough assessment of PAS and its leaders before casting their votes at the next GE.

The common saying among the supporters of hudud is that it does not in anyway infringe on the rights of non-Muslims. Does this verbal guarantee hold true? Lets pose a few questions to PAS and at the same time invite others to think carefully over this questions:

Is hudud law the last and only agenda on PAS’s Islamic struggle?

If not, what is the next Islamic agenda not yet fully disclosed to the non-Muslims at large? PAS should come clean on this particular issue.

The 1957 Merdeka constitution is commonly agreed upon by all stakeholders, including the Christian majority in Sabah and Sawarak, as the common destiny to preserve a secular state. PAS has only got less than 30 parliamentary seats in the federal legislature, how could it deny others a say in this hudud issue?

Hudud laws rely heavily on crude and witness-at-the-scene type of testimony to commit the offenders. Now that burglar and thieves could exist in the form of cyber crime without eye-witnesses, how could hudud deal with these modern-time problems?

Who says that hudud prescribes no death sentences? Is it not part and parcel of hudud to stone to death married men and women who commit adultery?

Who says hudud laws do not affect the lives of non-Muslims. If a certain crime involves Muslims and non-Muslims either as witnesses or victims, which Court, Syariah or normal CRiminal Court should dispense with administration of justice?

If it is the Syariah Court, what is the rightful status of non-Muslims victims and witnesses in the proceedings?

Rather relying on the personal charm of Tok Guru, PAS must answer all these queries before talking about capturing Putrajaya.

Otherwise the non-Muslims will not feel safe because the implementation of hudud laws, even if initially confined to Kelantan, will open the floodgates to further Islamic agenda from PAS.

On the surface PAS has pretended to transform by declaring its welfare state agenda to capture federal power but in actual fact it has not changed at all.