Kuala Lumpur: The organisers of ‘dog patting’ campaign in Malaysia that triggered outrage in the Muslim-majority country, have apologised after receiving death threats and torrents of online abuse for organising the event.
“I apologise for the unhappiness the event has caused. The objectives of the event were only for educational purposes such as allying the public’s fear of dogs, how to help rescue a dog and to what extent Muslims can handle a dog,” Syed Azmi Alhabshi said in a statement here today.
He added that the social event ‘I Want to Touch A Dog’ held on October 19 did not in any way encourage Muslims to keep dogs as pets.
“I had no ulterior motives such as challenging the beliefs of Muslims or Islamic rulings, belittling Islamic scholars or promoting liberalism,” he said, admitting that the event had some shortcomings.
His lawyer Syahredzan Johan said Syed Azmi’s safety was now of concern as he had received several death threats following the event with hard-liners insisting that he “should be stoned to death.”
Syed Azmi has also lodged a police complaint over the death threats.
The co-organiser of the event and social activist Norhayati Ismail said that they did not expect such a huge turnout for the event as they had only anticipated a crowd of about 500 people.
The controversial two-hour event last week saw close to 1,500 participants touching and taking pictures with dogs in an attempt to overcome the negative public perception of dogs.
Many Malaysians, including clerics, took offence at photos of Muslims petting and holding the dogs and circulated the organiser’s mobile phone number online.
Muslim clerics had accused the organisers of trying to legalise something that was clearly haram (forbidden) in their religion as dogs are considered unclean in Islam.
The multi-ethnic Muslim-majority Malaysia has historically practised a moderate form of Islam, but extremist views have been gaining traction in recent months.
Earlier this month, the venue for Oktoberfest beer festival had to be shifted after it faced staunch opposition from Muslim religious leaders.
