By P Prem Kumar
KUALA LUMPUR (AA) - Malaysia has decided not to withdraw its football team from an ongoing regional event in Myanmar, instead choosing other ways to protest the treatment of the country's ethnic Rohingya population.
Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaludin told reporters Friday that the decision had been reached after a discussion among cabinet members.
"The cabinet decided not to pull out of the tournament and will pursue other avenues to raise our concerns and ask for action to be taken so whatever is happening in Rakhine State will stop," Jamaludin said.
"The next diplomatic action will be announced by the foreign ministry."
On Wednesday, Jamaludin said in a Twitter statement that he had lobbied for the team to boycott the ongoing ASEAN Football Federation's Suzuki Cup, to stress Malaysian opposition to ongoing violence in Myanmar's westernmost state, Rakhine.
The request came after a statement by popular Malaysian independent Islamic preacher, writer, lecturer and consultant Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, urging the government to stand firm against an ongoing crackdown.
"What is the meaning of sports without humanity? More than that, it is an extreme cruelty against one of mankind's ethnic groups and they are Muslims," Abidin, the mufti of Malaysia's smallest state Pelis, was reported as saying.
"We really hope for the government's strictness in this matter."
Any withdrawal from the eight-team tournament would have run counter to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) policy of non-interference in other members' affairs.
On Friday, Khairy said that the boycott would have put the Malaysian football association at risk of sanction.
"We are very concerned of what was happening in Myanmar, but we were also mindful of sanctions by FIFA," he said, referring to world football's governing body.
Since an armed group launched fatal attacks on police stations in an area of western Myanmar inhabited by Rohingya last month, the government has said at least 86 people -- 17 soldiers and 69 alleged "attackers" (among them two women) -- have been killed.
Rohingya groups, however, claim that the number killed in one weekend alone earlier this month could be as high as 150 civilians.
There has been no independent verification of the attacks or arrests as access to the affected area near the Bangladesh border has been under Myanmar military control since Oct. 9