A screen grab of the viral video which shows two individuals who refused to stand for Negaraku during a fundraising dinner last Friday.
KUCHING: The event where a group of Sarawak for Sarawakians (S4S) members had refused to stand for the national anthem was not organised by Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak Baru (PBDSB).
Former president of the deregistered PBDSB Bobby William made this clarification after the party’s name was mentioned as the organiser of the dinner event.
“The action of S4S members refusing to stand up when the national anthem was played has nothing to do with PBDSB,” he said in a press statement.
A video of the incident where the S4S members refused to stand up when Negaraku was played before the dinner started, had gone viral on social media.
Bobby explained that a civil society group Terabai Heritage took over as the event organiser of the dinner after the PBDSB was deregistered by the Registrar of Societies (RoS).
Bobby said the dinner, held at a hotel here last Friday, was initially meant to raise funds for PBDSB for its administration.
“Since our party’s registration has been cancelled, we decided to ask the civil society to take over as the organiser,” he said.
He also claimed that the organiser was not aware that the S4S members did not stand up as a sign of respect when the national anthem was played at the start of the programme for the night.
“It was beyond organiser’s control when the S4S members had refused to stand up to respect the national anthem,” Bobby said.
He said that the action of the S4S members should not be linked to PBDSB or the civil society, adding that it was a separate and isolated incident.
“Their motive for refusing to stand up when Negaraku was played was only known to them,” he said.
The S4S members involved in the incident had their statements recorded by the police yesterday afternoon and they claimed that their action was a silent protest towards the federal government’s broken election promises.