YOUTH and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman has refuted media reports that the controversial National Civics Bureau (BTN) will not be abolished.

“Some of the media reported that BTN will not be abolished. It will be.

“There will be announcement on this soon,” he told a crowd of 400 at a public forum in Sunway University today.

Instead of fostering unity, BTN had been accused by many former attendees of its programmes as unashamedly racist, bigoted and promoting a Malay Muslim supremacist line of thinking.

BTN was among 26 government agencies retained under the Prime Minister’s Department during its July 1 rationalisation exercise.

Syed Saddiq said the July 1 announcement was misinterpreted.

“We still want to have political education and character building but we don’t want it to be used as (an opportunity to) indoctrinate (youth) along partisan lines,” he said.

The youngest minister said he has attended several BTN brainwashing sessions that sought to perpetuate the myth that Malays were doomed without Umno.

“How do we best bring (about) just and fair political education? We don’t want another BTN.

“We want political education (with mature) debate and dialogue, where views are respected regardless of which party it is from,” he said.

Syed Saddiq also said that the ministry wants to empower non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and raise female participation in its youth programmers.

“Previously many programmes ran by KBS (Youth and Sports Ministry) were youth focused and predominantly participated by men.

“We want to include more young women. (We also want) more NGOs to drive these programmes.” – July 9, 2018.