KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has told opposition leader Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin to seek a 'tarbiyah' (lecture) from Pas president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang on 'qazaf' (making false allegation).
Anwar said it was unreasonable of Hamzah to use qazaf as a point to attack him.
This is in regard to Hamzah's remark in the lower house yesterday where he told Anwar to take stern action against an Italian news agency for publishing an article with the headline "First full-blown homosexual elected prime minister in an Islamic country."
"We have to be patient because not all statements issued were done responsibly. For example, the opposition leader (Hamzah) has 25 years of working experience…slandering, defaming, conspiring (with others), making personal attacks and all of these continue in more insidious ways.
"I will not speak further on the matter because he (Hamzah) clearly had never gotten a 'tarbiyah' from Marang MP (Abdul Hadi) who had previously written about qazaf.
"I suggest the opposition leader read the book and also, when reading the Quran, read it properly. Read it the right way," he said in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Yesterday, a shouting match erupted in the Dewan Rakyat after Hamzah cited an Agenzia Nova report which referred to Anwar as Malaysia's 'first full-blown homosexual prime minister to be elected in an Islamic country'.
This prompted Pakatan Harapan (PH) MPs to strongly urge Hamzah to retract his statement.
Hamzah dismissed their calls and told them to let him finish his sentence, saying he wanted to ask Anwar if he would take legal action against Agenzia Nova.
Following that, Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil questioned Hamzah's judgment in quoting the article, adding that he expected the opposition leader would cite a credible news portal or agency instead of a little-known Italian website.
Fahmi, who is the Lembah Pantai MP, also questioned the credibility of the source as the website was not even listed by Reuters as a news outlet in Italy.
"Be careful, Hamzah wants to scam us. As it turns out, it is some obscure website. They didn't even state the name of the reporters who wrote the article," he said.
