Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng has urged PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang to sue the New Straits Times (NST) should the latter feel aggrieved by the daily's reporting.

Lim said this was necessary as the statements cited by the reports were hurtful to non-Muslims and non-Malays.

"I hope he will sue NST if what was reported was not true," said Lim, who has won many defamation suits against media organisation in recent years.

He said if Hadi was "not brave enough" to do so, it would only reinforce the view that the PAS president was "threatening" non-Muslims, said Lim, who is also DAP secretary-general.

The report had cited Hadi's statement published on Harakah Daily on Dec 23, in which the PAS president appears to have said that the Malaysian cabinet should consist only of Malays because they form the majority.

Hadi (photo) had said Islam requires Muslims to be "policy and concept" makers while accepting non-Muslims in areas of "expertise and management".

Hadi's aide seeks apology

He also claimed that Islam looked after non-Muslims better than "man-made ideologies" in terms of politics, economics and other affairs.

Several PAS leaders have claimed that NST had misreported what Hadi said and that he never insisted on an all-Malay cabinet.

Yesterday, PAS information chief Nasrudin Hassan said what Hadi meant was that Islam was open to having non-Muslims involved in "wizarah al-tanfidz" (implementation).

However, Nasrudin was silent about whether Hadi meant if non-Muslims cannot be policymakers.

Earlier today, Hadi's press secretary Abdul Malik Razak today urged NST and its reporter to apologise over the report and a related report published today.

"NST is stubborn and reported the matter again today. It shows the daily's prejudice towards Islam," he said in a statement posted on Hadi's Facebook page.