DAP Youth lodged a police report today against an Umno leader for his 'seditious' call on the government to close all Chinese schools in the country.

The report was lodged by the youth wing's acting national secretary Loke Siew Fook (centre in photo) at the Sea Park police station in Petaling Jaya.

Speaking to reporters later, he said Umno Youth education bureau chief Dr Adham Baba should not question the right of Malaysians to vernacular education which is stipulated in the Federal Constitution.

Loke cited a court case in 1971 where Malay daily Utusan Melayu was found guilty of sedition for carrying a report headlined 'Abolish Chinese and Tamil schools in the country'.

He said in view of this, the Umno leader's statement had also violated the Sedition Act.

Adham's controversial remark was published in the wing's official website under the heading ' Prejudis melampau cauvinis pendidikan cina, kerajaaan digesa tutup semua SJKC ' (Chinese education chauvinists's extreme prejudice, government urged to close Chinese schools).

The Umno leader was commenting on the opposition from two influential Chinese education groups to the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English for Standard One, Form One and Lower Six students beginning next year.

The two movements are the United Chinese School Committees' Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) and the United Chinese School Teachers' Association of Malaysia (Jia Zong)

Collectively known as Dong Jiao Zong, they were also labelled as 'extremists' by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad for their vocal stand on the issue.

Adham was quoted as saying that the closure of all Chinese schools was necessary because the two movements were always prejudiced against any education policy proposed by the government.

"Maybe they have forgotten, our tolerance has a limit. We hope they don't stir us up because we know this kind of sensitive issues would tempt disaster," he warned.

Racist remark

Apart from being seditious, Loke said the Umno leader's statement was also "racist" in nature.

"Dong Jiao Zong has every right to voice their opposition to the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English as it is an education issue.

"After 45 years of independence, we are marching towards a Malaysian nation. But this kind of remark with a racist tone makes us feel uneasy," he said.

The DAP leader urged the police and the attorney-general's chambers to investigate and charge Adham under the Sedition Act for questioning a constitutional right and threatening racial harmony.

He also called on Umno Youth chief Hishamuddin Hussein to retract the article from the website and publicly aplogise on behalf of the wing.

Loke said DAP Youth will continue to monitor the statements made by its Umno counterpart regarding this matter.

This is the second police report lodged by the opposition party against an Umno leader over the language switch issue.

Last month, DAP secretary-general Kerk Kim Hock lodged a report against Kelantan Umno leader Ibrahim Ali when he claimed that DAP incited Chinese-based parties in the ruling Barisan Nasional to oppose the new policy.

The language switch aims to arrest the decline of students' proficiency in English but this met with strong criticism.

Vernacular education movements questioned the rationale behind the teaching of the two technical subjects in English to improve students' command of the language.

Dong Jiao Zong warned that this was the first step towards obliterating the use of Mandarin as a teaching medium in Chinese schools.