Lawyer Siti Kasim is not an environmentalist nor does she truly fight for the Orang Asli in Kelantan, says PAS working central committee member Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor.

Instead, her fight for these two causes was because she was against the PAS-led Kelantan state government, he claimed.

"This issue in Kelantan is driven by political parties, working with those who oppose the implementation of Islamic laws such as Siti Kasim who is against the Kelantan state government, not an environmentalist and certainly far from being someone who cares about the Orang Asli," he said in a statement published on the party's mouthpiece Harakah Daily yesterday.

Siti Kasim, who represents the Orang Asli behind the blockade in Gua Musang, Kelantan, has been very vocal about issues affecting the indigenous people.

Muhammad Sanusi also said that those who truly cared about stopping logging to preserve the forests and the livelihood of many including the indigenous people, should lobby to ban logging altogether.

Right now, he pointed out, logging was not inherently wrong, as there were laws and procedures under the Forestry Department regulating this activity.

Logging only became a crime when it broke these laws, he said.

"If the state government is stopped from logging as a source of income, then can there be suggestions for some other source of income for the government and the 127,757 workers in the industry?" he questioned.

Not only that, if this concern over the environment and livelihood of the indigenous people is only limited to Kelantan but not to other states where logging is also widespread such as Sarawak, Sabah and Pahang, then this concern has a hidden agenda, he said.

"An agenda which could be placed in the 'evil' category," he said.

The real enemy in the logging industry, he said, are those who are corrupt, abuse their power and break the laws.

The authorities have cracked down on the Orang Asli at the blockades in Gua Musang the past few days, with 54 members of the community being arrested on Tuesday.

The Kelantan government had earlier demanded the blockades be removed and stressed that logging was a legitimate activity and an important source of revenue for the state.

However, the heavy-handed approach in ending the blockade had sparked condemnation from human rights groups.