Wednesday, September 23, 2015

As Malaysia's PM struggles in graft scandal, his party plays the race card...

When thousands of Malay Muslims marched through Kuala Lumpur last week to support his scandal-wracked government, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak kept his distance.

He neither attended nor officially endorsed the racially charged rally by members of Malaysia's majority community.

But several members of Najib's political party told Reuters they helped an ultranationalist Malay group stage the "Malay Pride" rally. Critics accused the organisers of stoking racial tensions in multicultural Malaysia to distract from a multi-million-dollar corruption scandal swirling around the prime minister.

Protesters at the rally held signs reading "Don't insult Malays and Islam" and "#najibstays". Some were eventually dispersed by riot police outside Chinatown, where many Chinese businesses are located.

There, witnesses said, they hurled racial abuse against ethnic Chinese and threatened a repeat of 1969, when ethnic rioting killed hundreds of people, mostly Chinese. Communal tension has simmered in the succeeding decades, and some fear that racially volatile mass gatherings like the Sept. 16 rally could spiral into violence. Full story...

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