Two SUPP Youth leaders yesterday lodged a police report against Rural Development Minister Ismail Sabri, claiming his speech on ‘Low Yat Plaza 2 for Malay traders’ on Tuesday is seditious.

Given the minister’s speech which has ‘seditious tendency’, they also want the state authorities to bar him from entering Sarawak, the Borneo Post reported today.

The daily said SUPP Youth central publicity and information secretary, Milton Foo, and Pelawan branch secretary, Tiang Ming Tee, lodged the report.

“We lodged this report as we believe that the remark made by Ismail was of seditious tendency that promotes feelings of ill-will and hostility or hatred among different races and classes of the population as provided in Section 3(1)(e) of the Sedition Act 1948,” the newspaper quoted Tiang saying this at a press conference.

The two cited the Astro Awani news report on Tuesday, where the federal minister had proposed to have Low Yat 2 at the Mara building so as to provide space especially for Malay businessmen and the ministry is targetting 100 percent business from the Malay community.

Tiang said in the news article that police investigations revealed the Low Yat Plaza incident was caused by a petty crime which later developed into a brawl.

The daily quoted Tiang saying that as a federal minister, Ismail should have been promoting national unity instead of creating more harm to social harmony, said.

“Ismail's racist remarks he made this year were meant to lure personal popularity and heroism but at the expense of public interest and ethnic relations. These are shameful gestures on his part,” said Tiang in the article.

Not fit to be minister

“This country is a multi-racial nation. We shouldn’t let radicals and extremists speak so loudly to harm this country without facing any consequences,” he said.

The daily quoted Foo saying that Ismail does not deserve another chance to apologise for making ‘racist’ remarks again.

“He is not fit to be a minister after making several racist remarks in nature. After his ‘boycott of Chinese merchants’ remark in February, now again he did it. Obviously, he is not repentful,” he was reported to have said.

In February, Ismail, when he held the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry portfolio, had urged Malays to boycott Chinese traders in a Facebook posting.

Borneo Post said Foo, who is a lawyer, urged the Sarawak government to ban Ismail from entering Sarawak, and said SUPP would forward the police report to the state immigration department for them to exercise the authority.