KUCHING: The Association of Churches in Sarawak (ACS) has refuted a news report claiming that it was “disappointed” with Pakatan Rakyat leaders for holding a press conference after its dialogue session with Christian leaders yesterday.
The report quoted ACS secretary-general Ambrose Limbang as saying that the closed-door session was held after the leader’s agreed to the association’s request to not hold a press conference on the matter.
However, Ambrose expressed surprise over the report in a mainstream daily and told FMT that he had made no such statement.
“We were not at all disappointed or unhappy with the Pakatan leaders,” he said. “It is completely their perogative whether they wanted to hold a press conference or a teleconference after the session.”
“As far as we are concerned, what happened after the meeting has nothing to do with us. So no, I never said that I was disappointed.”
Seputeh MP Teresa Kok, who was present at the meeting, also expressed astonishment over the news report.
In a written statement this morning, she deemed the report “incomplete and politically motivated to paint Pakatan leaders in a negative light and a desperate last-ditch attempt to mislead the public for tomorrow’s state election”.
“ACS leaders had requested that they would not hold any press conferences together with us and that members of the media would not be allowed into the meeting room,” she said.
“ACS leaders were aware that the media was waiting outside. It was understood that Pakatan would speak with the reporters after the meeting ended.”
“Pakatan understands the situation of the ACS leaders. I believe they were under tremendous pressure and that is why they made such a statement.”
While Pakatan declined to divulge details of the meeting, Ambrose said that it had purely been a fellowship session and that no political topics were raised.
“We didn’t even speak about the Al-Kitab or ‘Allah’ issues,” he said. “ACS had already told Pakatan – as it had told BN – that if they wanted to discuss politics or those two issues, then they were talking to the wrong group.”
The Christian Federation of Malaysia (CMF) yesterday called for patience and careful consideration of the government’s recent 10-point solution in resolving the Al-Kitab row.
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