PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang was given a hero’s welcome in his home state of Terengganu yesterday after he successfully tabled the RUU355, the bill seeking to amend the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965.

He was met at the Sultan Mahmud airport in Kuala Terengganu by some 500 supporters and later escorted by a motorcycle convoy to his home in Rusila, Marang.

Later last night, Hadi spoke to his supporters at the Rusila mosque. It was a full house with half the crowd comprising youths in secondary religious school uniforms.

Hadi thanked those who made the tabling of his Private Member’s Bill possible.

“I thank PAS and other Islamic leaders in the government,” he said, while also reiterating that the bill had nothing to do with non-Muslims.

He said the deferment of the debate on the bill to the next Dewan Rakyat session was to enable all parties, namely non-Muslims, to study it.

PAS election director Mustafa Ali and Terengganu PAS commissioner Satiful Bahri Mamat also addressed the crowd.

While Hadi and the other PAS leaders spoke in Terengganu, their former political allies in PKR and Amanah debated RUU355.

At the Invoke think tank office near Kuala Lumpur, 10 Pakatan Harapan MPs held a parliament-style session of their own to debate Hadi’s bill, which proposed to increase the maximum jail, fine and whipping punishments by shariah courts.

It was a mock parliament session to hold the debate that did not happen last Thursday afternoon at the Dewan Rakyat after Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia abruptly declared the adjournment of the House after Hadi’s bill was tabled and seconded.

Among the 10 MPs were Rafizi Ramli (PKR-Pandan), Khalid Samad (Amanah-Shah Alam), Mujahid Yusof (Amanah-Parit Buntar), Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud (Amanah-Kota Raja), Johari Abdul (PKR-Sungai Petani) and Wong Chen (PKR-Kelana Jaya).

PKR information chief Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh acted as the speaker.

The session was held in front of a live audience and also aired in realtime on Facebook. On Rafizi’s Facebook page alone, there were over 3,000 viewers. – April 11, 2017.