KUCHING: The federal government has been urged to quickly review and amend the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the Chinese New Year (CNY) celebration.
Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) secretary-general Datuk Sebastian Ting Chiew Yew described the SOP for CNY which was announced by Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob on Thursday as ‘shocking, insensitive, and to a certain extent culturally clueless’ of how Chinese people celebrate CNY every year.
“The idea of just allowing family members living in the same house to celebrate reunion dinner while prohibiting other family members living nearby from joining is utterly preposterous and a joke,” he said in a statement today.
He questioned where the ‘reunion’ aspect was if one were to just eat with the same family members whom they eat with every day.
“Honestly, it is mind boggling to see the federal government coming out with half-baked SOPs that allow night markets to operate but prohibit reunion dinners among family members living nearby.”
The Piasau assemblyman also questioned how a reunion dinner among family members would pose a bigger risk than night markets where hundreds of people would be present.
“We fully understand the federal government’s intention is to curb the spread of Covid-19, but the SOPs seriously have to make sense and fit in with the Chinese cultural celebration.”
Ting expressed gratitude towards the state government, which through the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC), had not followed or implemented the federal SOP, especially for CNY eve’s reunion dinner.
“We are indeed very fortunate that the SOPs by our SDMC allows family reunion dinner on the eve — Feb 11, though limiting to only 20 family members living nearby to celebrate together at home but still a wonderful and meaningful reunion dinner.”
He noted that everyone would be looking forward to getting together during CNY as many had not been able to meet face-to-face for almost a year since the nationwide movement control order.
He urged everyone to continue to look after the safety of themselves and their loved ones, and to continue practising the SOP.
