“Check my statement again. Not even one word mentioned him (Maszlee). I only said that the content of the Form 4 textbook needed to be corrected.

“The writing of the content in this textbook was manipulated and it happened when Pakatan Harapan (PH) was in government,” he said at a virtual forum last night.

Asyraf had urged the education ministry to correct some content in the textbooks that he claimed glorified communists as independence fighters.

He claimed this was intentionally done by PH when in government to “sow the seeds” of the “Malaysian Malaysia” ideology.

The education ministry has since clarified the changes in the content of the textbooks, saying they were finalised in April 2018, before PH came to power.

The ministry said the publication of the Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Menengah history textbook was based on the Standard Curriculum and Assessment Document (DSKP), and that the ministry’s standard operating procedures on textbook publication were updated in 2018.

Maszlee, the education minister when PH was in government, yesterday sent a legal letter to Asyraf demanding a public apology and compensation for slander.

During the forum, Asyraf claimed that the DSKP needed to get the final green light from the Cabinet, despite having already been approved on April 24, 2018.

He pointed out that Parliament and the Barisan Nasional (BN) Cabinet had already been dissolved by then.

“It must also be remembered that the printing of these textbooks was done in 2019. So, between April 2018 and 2019, the process of the writing of these books was not under BN.”