Lim Lip Eng says sorry for sharing FB post over khat issue

KUALA LUMPUR: Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng has apologised for recently sharing on his Facebook post a quote from an article over the proposal of teaching khat in primary schools.

Lim received backlash for his post on Saturday (Aug 3) after putting up a Facebook post which read: "While education ministers in our neighbouring countries are planning to introduce computer programming language (coding) to their young students, let us not rub cow manure on our faces by introducing khat. Please."

However,the post was deleted five hours after being put up and Lim said that this quote was not his, but from an article from a news portal that he linked to his Facebook page.

Lim admitted that he erred when he shared the quote from the article on his social media account without attributing it to the original writer, causing social media users to think that it was his own view.

"I was not the writer. My mistake was not including the writer's name under the quote. I apologise for sharing the quote without attributing it to the real author.

"I also promise to be careful in posting on social media. I hope that the misunderstanding can be cleared up with this explanation," said Lim in a statement on Monday (Aug 5).

The issue of khat calligraphy has become heavily debated after the Education Ministry announced its plan to implement the art of writing the Jawi script for primary school pupils.

The syllabus is planned to start next year as part of the Year 4 Bahasa Melayu subject, although students will not be tested on their skill in writing khat.