Malaysian court bans Chinese-education lobby group’s protest against ‘Islamisation’ of schools

PM Mahathir Mohamad has warned that the event by the Dong Jiao Zong group had the potential to cause ‘chaos’

The protest was against the plan to teach the Arabic script khat in vernacular schools, which had roused ethnic tensions in the multiracial country

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A Malaysian student writes using the khat script. Photo: Ahemed Rafeeq | Twitter

Published: 9:29pm, 27 Dec 2019Updated: 1:35am, 28 Dec 2019

A Malaysian court on Friday banned a planned weekend protest, organised by a powerful lobby group for the country’s Chinese-medium schools, that officials had warned could stir up ethnic strife in the multiracial country.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad warned last weekend that the event by the Dong Jiao Zong group had the potential to cause “chaos” as it pitted Malaysia’s minority Chinese community against the Malay-Muslim majority.

Dong Jiao Zong’s primary aim for the protest on Saturday at a college in the town of Kajang – 28km from Kuala Lumpur – was to voice its opposition to the education ministry’s plan to have all local schools teach khat, a calligraphic form of the Arabic script, or Jawi, that was once the preferred system to write the Malay language.

Local media said the court order obtained by the police cited the risk of “riots if the meeting was allowed to take place”.

“In view of this, your presence at Dewan Kolej Universiti New Era Kajang tomorrow is forbidden and you have been warned not to gather or take part in any part of the meeting,” the order said.