Jeff Ooi

The coalition, called Forum Penyelarasan Umat (Forum), also demanded that Ooi retract his statement .

"He has insulted Islam by labelling JIM as extremist when the organisation is promoting syariah which is not the same as religious extremism," Forum spokesman Hafiz Nordin told a press conference today after handing over a memorandum to Lim Guan Eng through Deputy Chief Minister I Mansor Othman.

He accused Ooi of being anti-Islam and demanded that he resign as chief of staff and and said if he refused, he should be sacked.

The group of Forum members had gathered at Komtar at about 10am with the intention of going to Lim's office to personally hand over their memorandum.

However, they were not able to meet with Lim. Instead, his political secretary Ng Wei Aik told them he was instructed to accept the memorandum on his behalf.

They refused to hand over the memorandum to Ng, insisting on delivering it to Lim personally. They remained in the waiting area despite Ng instructing security guards to escort them out.

At about 11am, Mansor came out to meet them and the group handed over the memorandum to him.

Unhappy that they could not meet Lim, the group said this showed the Chief Minister was not interested in meeting with Muslim groups when he could spend so much time meeting non-Muslim groups.

"This shows how arrogant the Pakatan Rakyat state government has become and that they are practising double standards. The Chief Minister can't even spare a minute to meet us and accept the memorandum and worst of all, they even instructed the security guards to chase us out," Hafiz said, claiming that Lim had hid in his office with the excuse of chairing an exco meeting so that he does not have to meet with them.

The Forum members also staged a short protest at Komtar, holding banners demanding for Ooi to resign and apologise to the Muslim community.

They were angered by Ooi's statement in an English daily on Sunday where he had labeled PKR municipal councillor Mohd Razali Abdullah as an 'extremist' due to his membership in JIM.

Later, Ng told a press conference that Lim had explained at a Pakatan Rakyat meeting on Monday that Ooi's statement does not reflect the state government's stand.