00:00A professor of political science admitted in the High Court yesterday that a book authored
00:05by youth and sports minister Hannah Yeoh published more than 10 years ago was never banned by
00:10the government.
00:11Kamarul Zaman Yusof, a senior lecturer at University Utara Malaysia's School of International
00:17Studies, said he had purchased Yeoh's book, Becoming Hannah, A Personal Journey, in 2017.
00:23Testifying in a libel lawsuit brought by Yeoh against him, Kamarul admitted to authoring
00:27two Facebook posts and agreed that they referred to Yeoh.
00:31He also agreed that the posts labelled Yeoh a hypocrite for appearing to champion secularism
00:36in politics, while her book stated the separation of religion from the state should apply only
00:41to Islam and not Christianity.
00:43Kamarul rejected a claim by lawyer Sangeet Kordeo, representing Yeoh, that Muslims in
00:48the country had never raised objections to the content of the book.
00:52However, he agreed that neither the Mufti, the law minister, nor any other authority
00:57had taken action on the book since it was published in 2014, even when past Secretary-General
01:02Takiuddin Hassan held the position of law minister from March 2020 to August 2021.
01:08Yeoh filed the suit in 2022, claiming that Kamarul's statements accused her of proselytizing
01:13Christianity through her politics and alleged that Kamarul had accused her of driving a
01:17Christian agenda and intending to convert Malaysia into a Christian country.
01:23Danish Rajareza, FMT News.
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