MIC official demands ‘heaviest punishment’ for Johor principal

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 19 —The government must mete out the “heaviest punishment” on Johor school principal Siti Inshah Mansor for allegedly making racial remarks against the Chinese and Indian communities, MIC leader S. Murugessan said.The MIC central working committee member said he felt personally insulted when the principal supposedly said the Indians looked like “dogs” when they wore their prayer strings, adding that such offensive remarks should stop.“I am offended and hurt. No one should insult the religious practices of other religions and to say the Indians’ are akin to dogs is really, really insulting,” he told The Malaysian Insider last night.

Murugessan also chastised the principal for telling the Chinese to go back to China, pointing out that the community’s home was Malaysia.“This is our homeland, so people have to stop resorting to calling us to go back to India, to China. It is not fair and wrong of them to say that our homes are not here,” he said.
He noted that as the school principal, Siti Inshah was holding a position of great responsibility and should not be seen making such intolerable statements.“It sends a wrong signal to all Malaysians and threatens national unity,” he said.Murugessan also questioned the nonchalance of Education director-general Tan Sri Alimuddin Mohd Dom for brushing off the incident as a mere misunderstanding and for saying that the fiasco had been duly settled.“I am perplexed and distressed by his statement. At least 17 reports have been lodged over the matter and numerous students and parents have complained.

“How could all of them have misunderstood?

“How can the matter be considered resolved when we were informed that she (Siti Inshah) is on (now) on leave pending disciplinary action?” he asked.In an SMS to The Malaysian Insider yesterday, Alimuddin said the incident was just a misunderstanding and had been solved between the principal and the students.
He also denied that the principal had been transferred from Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra where she works.Murugessan said if indeed the issue had been settled, Siti Inshah would be the third such civil servant to be let off the hook with a mere slap on the wrist after making “racially derogatory and outrageous remarks”.

The other two, he said, were schoolteacher Rusita Abu Hassan and Datuk Nasir Safar, the prime minister’s former special officer.In Rusita’s case, the teacher at SMK Telok Panglima Garang in Banting had in 2008 allegedly used derogatory remarks on a certain ethnic group in order to “test their level of patience”.She was later transferred from the school but the punishment was viewed as more of a promotion for she was given a post in a smart school located near to her home.Nasir’s controversy was sparked off in February this year when he allegedly said that the “Indians came to Malaysia as beggars and Chinese, especially women, came to sell their bodies”.He was later asked to resign as the prime minister’s aide and no further action was taken against him. In Parliament, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said that this was because it was difficult to prove if Nasir’s words had any tendency to be seditious.

Murugessan said the government should be more proactive in punishing those who made such sensitive remarks in order to deter others from following suit.“I call upon the prime minister, the education minister and the home minister to thoroughly investigate the matter by bringing upon the heaviest punishment of the law. Mere suspension or transfer will not do,” he said.The police are currently investigating the case under section 504 of the Penal Code for provocation which carries a maximum imprisonment of two years, a fine or both.
Last Thursday, the principal had reportedly made the derogatory remarks during the launch of the school’s Merdeka celebrations.“Chinese students are not needed here and can return to China or Foon Yew schools. For the Indian students, the prayer string tied around their neck and wrist makes them look like dogs because only dogs are tied like that,” Siti Inshah was quoted as saying in at least one police report.

State Education Department deputy director Markom Giran has also said that the principal was on leave pending disciplinary action.The school administration confirmed with The Malaysian Insider that the principal has been leave since yesterday and is expected to be back by Monday.On Tuesday, Lim Kit Siang called on the government to remove the principal and said that she should be severely punished for the offensive remarks allegedly made during a school assembly.

Source : http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/mic-official-demands-heaviest-punishment-for-johor-principal/