Utusan Malaysia has accused the Coalition of Malaysian NGOs (Comango) of attempting to help foreign powers colonise the country.
It said the 54 NGOs in Comango were pro-opposition and what it was promoting was no longer about human rights and freedom.
“It is more towards the threat of national security,” said Awang Selamat, the collective pseudonym for the newspaper’s editors, in its weekend edition Mingguan Malaysia today.
“This is a modern treachery toward the sovereignty of the country. Let Malaysia’s problem be settled with a Malaysian approach,” it added.
“We hope that the government will not bow to pressure and trap itself in the chess-like game that brings horrendous implications upon our nation,” Awang said in the column.
The newspaper felt that if Comango was left alone, it would send the wrong message to Malaysians and feared that “some Muslims may react in an extreme manner and jeopardise the nation’s harmony”.
Comango has been under the spotlight since Muslim group Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) accused the NGO group of lobbying for global pressure to persuade the Malaysian government to bow to various requests that are not inline with Islamic beliefs and the Federal Constitution.
Isma alleged that Comango was also promoting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement and the elimination of the Malay special rights under the constitution.
The allegations surfaced right before Malaysia was to present its report at the United Nations Universal Periodic Review last month.
Comango had denied the allegations that it has been promoting the LGBT movement and the elimination of the Malay special rights under the constitution.
Awang Selamat said it is an open secret that some of the NGOs under Comango are “funded by foreigners wanting to make Malaysia a secular country”.
“This includes Suaram which was once investigated for threatening national security but till this day, the government has not announced its finding,” the daily said in reference to another rights group, Suaram. – November 10, 2013.