Huge crowd gathers at rally in support of Selangor Sultan

SHAH ALAM: A huge crowd turned up at the rally organised by the Selangor Youth Council here in support of Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah on Sunday (Dec 10).

The rally was called following DAP's Datuk Zaid Ibrahim's Twitter posts against the Selangor Sultan.

Held at a field near the Seksyen 16 flats, the usually quiet residential area turned into a "sea of red" with majority of participants donning red T-shirts.

Many of them were holding placards printed with slogans such as ''Do not humiliate our Sultan!" and "Zaid Ibrahim get out of Selangor" with the Daulat Tuanku headband.

The rally began with leaders from several Barisan Nasional component parties delivering speeches condemning Zaid's statement against Sultan Sharafuddin and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's alleged insult of the Bugis community. 

Selangor Umno chairman Tan Sri Noh Omar said Zaid's statement was outright rude, and it hurt the feelings and insulted the Selangor people, and angered the Selangor Ruler.

"We call upon all Selangor citizens to stand strong and united behind any action by the Sultan," he said in a speech.

Noh said a declaration in support of Sultan Sharafuddin which also demands for actions to be taken against Zaid and Dr Mahathir would be handed over to the palace on Tuesday (Dec 12).

On social media, Zaid had said that the Ruler should be "careful" with his words and that everyone would be affected if "the country burns".

His tweets were believed to have been in response to the Sultan's statements in an exclusive interview with The Star.

In the interview, Sultan Sharafuddin had warned that the deliberate use of sensitive issues to fish for votes in the general election would destroy the country.

The Sultan said he did not wish to see politicians playing with matters of race, religion and other sensitive issues for political gain.