PAS Youth chief Afnan Hamimi Taib Azamudden said the wing would take to the streets to protest the proposed bill, set to be tabled in June.

“We are not afraid (of Anwar Ibrahim’s warning). We are not committing any crime. We only want our voices heard,” he told FMT.

Afnan also said that the rally would be organised within the confines of the law.

“We are not out to damage police vehicles, as was done by some uncivilised people in the past,” he added.

Afnan, the Perikatan Nasional (PN) Youth chief, said no date had been set for the rally, but that it would be held after Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

Earlier this month, Anwar cautioned the opposition against hindering efforts to improve the living conditions of urban Malays via the proposed legislation.

“I’m warning them not to challenge us. We are fighting for the poor, the majority of whom are Malays, along with some Indians and Chinese,” he said, adding that the government would mobilise an even larger rally to defend the URA.

Anwar was responding to critics of the URA, some of whom had claimed it would displace poor Malays from urban areas.

They include PAS, whose deputy youth chief Hafez Sabri had called the proposed legislation “modern colonisation” and compared it with the displacement of the Palestinians.

PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man meanwhile said that the bill could threaten social harmony, and that MPs from PN would oppose it.

However, housing and local government minister Nga Kor Ming dismissed claims that the proposed law targeted any specific ethnic group.