A Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) student delegate who spoke at the Umno general assembly last week has come under fire for his speech.
The student, Muhammad Farhan Khairuddin, was urged to resign from his leadership position in the campus for emphasising his “personal fame”.
A UKM student welfare association, Student Unity Front (SUF), said Farhan is unfit to be a leader of the student representative council.
It was reported last Friday that in his speech, Farhan, who is the Student Representative Council (MPP) president and Majlis Perundingan Pelajar Kebangsaan (MPPK) head, urged the government to monitor university lecturers who create sentiments that can cause students to reject the government.
"As such, Farhan is a disrespectful and irresponsible person. We find him to be unfit to be a leader of the student representative council as he emphasises his personal fame rather than the healthy development of the students and campus.
"We strongly urge his removal as MPP president and MPPK head for the sake of the two organisations," SUF said in a statement today.
Farhan seems to have forgotten that the knowledge and debating skills he has (acquired) as a law student now was due to the work of his lecturers, it said.
Right to freedom of speech
As such, it was rude of him to turn against lecturers who had spent efforts to educate him.
SUF pointed out that even lecturers have the right to freedom of speech, saying Farhan cannot ask the government to monitor lecturers who differ in ideology from him.
"Farhan is trying to shape a university with monotonous opinion, which is very unhealthy to nurture students with critical thinking," the statement says.
Campuses should also be free from any political influence, SUF said.
Universities should provide shelther to academicians and students for them to discuss the policies of the country as a tool to breed future leaders.
"The statement from Farhan is actually inviting pro-government parties, like Umno, to intervene in the affairs of universities and thus destroy the independence of the campuses," the statement adds.
"Perhaps, Farhan is trying to produce robots in the campus so that they will, like him, follow the decisions of the leaders,without opposing."
In a statement on his Facebook page, however, Farhan said his speech was "manipulated" by BH Online .
While he admitted to saying that lecturers should be monitored, he said he believes discussions should be done in an academic manner without political influence.
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