Organiser apologises over 'I Want to Touch a Dog' event

The organiser of the event, 'I Want to Touch a Dog', held last Sunday has apologised for causing unease among Muslims.

Syed Azmi Alhabshi stressed that the event was not intended to deviate Muslims from the faith, distort Islamic teachings, ridicule Islamic scholars or promote liberalism.

He said the event was held merely to help the public overcome their fear of dogs and how people may treat the animal in the context of Islam.

"The programme was not meant at all to suggest that Muslims should keep dogs as pets. It was only to stress the point that the dog is a creature of Allah," he told a media conference here today.

Also present at the press conference were co-organiser Norhayati Ismail, Syed Azmi's lawyer Syahredzan Johan, and Ustaz Iqbal Parjin who was invited to the event to give a briefing on the cleansing ritual for Muslims who had touched dogs.

"I admit that the programme had its weaknesses. I sincerely apologise to those whose feelings I had offended or whom I had put into trouble.

"I also want to apologise to those who had come to the event with a genuine intent to learn and not otherwise," he said.

He did not stay to respond to reporters' questions after giving the statement.

Syahredzan subsequently explained that Syed Azmi had to leave in a hurry for security reasons.

"I was with him yesterday when he was bombarded with more than 2,000 insults and death threats over Facebook, short message service (SMS) and WhatsApp.

"It has made him afraid to appear in public, to be intimidated with warnings about 'breaking his bones', and death threats," he said.

The lawyer also dismissed claims that Syed Azmi was an apostate.

Meanwhile, Norhayati said the gesture by some Muslim participants to hug and peck the dogs at the event held on Oct 19 at Central Park, One Utama here, happened outside of the organisers' control.

"We could not fully control the crowd but we succeeded in helping them to overcome their fear of dogs and how to handle a dog in an emergency and doing the ritual cleansing after that.

"We have no intention to hold another event ... we understand Muslims' sensitivities," she said.