COMMENT The protest by the 50 purported residents of Taman Medan which led to a shoplot church removing a cross is highly regrettable, what more when "according to sources, one of the people involved in the demonstration was none other than Munaliza Hamzah , the BN candidate who lost to PKR's Haniza Mohamed Talha in the last general election by a margin of 4,433 votes ( Malaysiakini commenter, 20 Apr 2015).”

It is time all component parties put their house in order as we cannot afford individual members' actions or words that will damage the good work of others. We cannot allow 50 persons to take the law into their own hands by criminal intimidation, threats etc. which is what this incident amounts to.

I call upon the inspector-general of police (IGP) to investigate this travesty immediately irrespective of whether the perpetrators are from Umno, PAS or PKR.

For BN to win, component parties must be mindful of their actions that may affect other component parties adversely.

All thuggish, brutish actions or crude or rude statements against the spirit of BN policies and practices must be stopped immediately if BN wants to survive the next GE collectively and not only one party wins at the expense of others.

Otherwise BN will soon disintegrate and extremism and not moderation will rule the day. We have shown disrespect for the right of others to their freedom to practice their faith.

There's no law forbidding others to practise their religion in an area consisting of mainly Malays or which is Muslim majority. Similarly we do not want East Malaysian Christians to protest against Islamic practices in a constituency that is populated largely by Christians.

Umno must act

Munaliza Hamzah (a protestor as reported by an online news portal) being a candidate for BN must know the bottom line in her political posturing.

How can she represent BN to seek public office if she cannot respect the constitutional guarantees that she is supposed to uphold and safeguard as a wakil rakyat if elected?

It is time BN exercise "the whip" to put the party back to its order. Any waywardness must be cautioned or disciplined.

We exhort Umno to take action on Munalisa as an example that Umno upholds the constitutional rights of others freedom to practice their religion.

Besides verbally attacking the church, Munaliza is seen holding up a placard which read, ‘Wakil rakyat Dun Taman Medan tidor (Is the state assemblyperson sleeping?)’.

Compare this to the case of a Gerakan AGM delegate who was suspended for saying that we are all “pendatangs”.

Letter 't' in the alphabet soup can erode faiths?

If we do not put a stop to this act of aggression in the name of protecting one's religion, we may come to a point whereby there may be extremist demanding the removal of the letter 't' from our alphabets as it resembles the cross and there may be a subtle way of influencing Muslims to convert to Christianity.

If it ever comes to that... this will be the ultimate low in our nation.

Learn from Umno Youth chairperson cum Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin ( right ) whose 2013 Facebook greeting for Christmas read, “Have faith in your own faith. If your belief is strong, no one can make you lose your religion. And if you are sure of your own convictions, you will respect others even more. You won't view them as a threat, as people secretly working to proselytise you.”

And please check your placard spelling!

To sidetrack for a moment, I also urge Munaliza to improve her spelling ability as the Bahasa Malaysia spelling for ‘sleep’ or ‘tidur’ is spelt with a 'u', and not an 'o'.

After all, a wakil rakyat wannabe will be in contact with heaps of official and legal documents where knowledge of lexicon spelling is important.

TI LIAN KER is MCA religious harmony bureau chairperson and MCA central committee member.