“These motions fall under the category of hypothetical motion, of which the debaters – should they debate the motions – are required to envision an imaginary world where the motions can take place,” said Mohammad Aidil Ali and Iyad Zakiy Amal, chief adjudicators of the Piala Tun Razak (PTR) debate competition held in a secondary school recently.

The two motions that had stirred controversy were about “moderate” Muslim scholars rewriting the Quran, and Islam’s position on homosexuality.

In a joint statement, Aidil and Iyad, who are Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) students, denied they came up with the topics with the intention of indoctrinating young debaters or pushing a liberal agenda.

The duo however apologised if the debate was offensive.

“We will take this as a precautionary lesson and would ensure that for the future editions of PTR, such motions would be avoided.”

They said the topics would not lead to the demonisation of Islam, adding that it was the goal of any debate to encourage participants to think unconventionally and critically.

“Furthermore, there are a lot of debating competitions out there which would require debaters to debate more interpretively controversial motions.

“Thus, we think that it is best to expose the young debaters to these types of motions so they would be aware of the reality of discourse that they would face in other debating competitions, and learn the kind of arguments they could run (into) without having to jeopardise their faith and religion,” they said.

Yesterday, the education ministry said it was considering action against the duo following complaints about the debate’s contents.

UiTM has since said that it was not aware about its students’ involvement in the debate.