INTEREST groups in Malaysia should not behave like vigilantes, said progressive Islamic think tank Islamic Renaissance Front.

“These NGOs should stop behaving like the Gestapo, as we have entered a new paradigm of politics, an era without Umno,” said IRF chairman Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa today, in response to an incident in Manjoi, Perak, where a group, believed to have links to PAS, forced convenience store workers to remove beers from display refrigerators.

“Unless they respect the right of non Muslims, we are not practising freedom of religion at all. The basics to freedom of religion is to have mutual respect for others and their beliefs,” said Farouk, who is commissioner at the Commonwealth Initiative for the Freedom of Religion or Belief.

As the group supervised the workers removing the beer, one of the men was overheard saying: “It’s not like we are going to break them. But if they don’t listen, we may have to break them.”

They later went to lodge a police report at the Manjoi police station.

The incident was put up on Facebook and appears to have the tacit approval of PAS Tambun Youth chief Hafez Sabri.

Farouk said that every Muslim must decide how to live his life in accordance to what is prescribed in the Quran and traditions of Prophet Muhammad.

“There should not be any compulsion in religion,” said Ahmad Farouk.