KUALA LUMPUR: Muslims should not impose their values on non-Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan, said PAS Kota Raja MP Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud.

“If non-Muslims want to show respect voluntarily by not eating in front of Muslims, we should be grateful for their thoughtfulness.

“But if they don’t, we should not reprimand them,” she said.

“I worry that some teachers and civil servants are trying to impose their values on non-Muslims but are only attracting negative remarks about Islam,” she said yesterday.

She was responding to an incident where a teacher had asked non-Muslim pupils to drink outside the classroom and not in front of their Muslim schoolmates during an assembly on Sunday.

He said they could drink in the toilet and added – apparently in jest – that they should not drink their own urine.

Dr Siti Mariah said it was part and parcel of fasting for Muslims to face other people eating and drinking.

“I believe the faith of our Muslim schoolchildren is not so frail that they would break their fast when seeing their non-Muslim friends eating and drinking,” she said.