MALAY rights group Perkasa today told off DAP lawmakers for slamming City Hall’s block on the Better Beer Festival 2017 in Kuala Lumpur.

Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali said the city authority was apolitical and acting to protect the sensitivities of Muslims.

“We agree we need to be open-minded and to respect freedom, but we must remember Islam is the state religion.

“DAP wants to show that it is the champion of non-Muslim rights, namely for the Chinese, for its own political interests,” he told a press conference at the Perkasa head office today.

Ibrahim said freedom had its limits and was not applicable to “everything”.

“For the sake of freedom, can we allow people to go about in the nude? Is that what freedom means?

“Don’t tell me that for the sake for freedom, they will fight with their lives over a festival like this?”

City Hall announced yesterday that the beer festival would not proceed as it had rejected the organiser’s application for a permit. 

It has offered no explanation for the rejection beyond citing “political sensitivities”.

Mayor Mhd Amin Nordin Abd Aziz also declined to shed light on the matter, saying: “…no, no comment. Just say it’s a sensitive issue,” when pressed by the media.

The announcement of the cancellation yesterday has been slammed by DAP leaders such as former de facto law minister Zaid Ibrahim.

“Those who oppose the festival are in the same group. They don’t want festivals, don’t want entertainment, don’t want singing. Two, three wives, are allowed, the younger the better,” Zaid said on Facebook yesterday.

DAP and PKR MPs, Tan Kok Wai (Cheras), Teresa Kok (Seputeh), Fong Kui Lun (Bukit Bintang), Lim Lip Eng (Segambut) and Tan Kee Kwong (Wangsa Maju), today expressed dismay at the cancellation, panning City Hall’s lack of a proper explanation for rejecting the organiser’s application for a permit.

The Better Beer Festival, which had been held yearly since 2012, was  have featured 250 craft beers from 43 breweries worldwide on  October 6 and 7 at Publika Shopping Gallery. – September 19, 2017.