PETALING JAYA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has recently reminded schools to control their Palestine solidarity programmes.
This is following reports of students and teachers carrying toy weapons in schools as a bid in displaying their solidarity for the Palestinians who are being attacked by Israeli forces in Gaza.
“We have to control this. We discussed this in the Cabinet meeting. We encourage schools to do this (show solidarity) but we do not force them.
“Secondly, we have to control it so it won’t become a problem,” Anwar asserted, according to a report by FMT.
Recently a viral video of a school event showed what is believed to be a man clad in a bulletproof vest, a balaclava mask and pointing a toy rifle at several students while leading a group of teachers into an assembly.
Not only that, there were other screenshots of another school event in Klang gone viral showing young students donned in green bandanas with “Save Palestine” written across their forehead while brandishing toy guns.
The Palestine Solidarity Week was an initiative reportedly brought up by the Education Ministry to not only reflect their stance in the Israel-Gaza conflict but to also “educate students about humane values that also include human rights and compassion”, according to a statement released on Thursday.
According to MOE, the Palestine Solidarity Week will be held from Oct 29 until Nov 3 in all educational institutions nationwide.
