GEORGE TOWN, Jan 14 — Penang Mufti Datuk Seri Wan Salim Mohd Noor said today he believes pro-moderation group G25 was sincere in its views that Muslims can leave Islam as provided in the Federal Constitution under freedom of religion.

But he believes the group was confused by the concept of freedom and had forgotten that there was no absolute freedom in this world.

"Every freedom must be balanced with responsibility and freedom must also be in accordance with the law, religious rules and moral values,” he said in a statement issued today.

He admitted that Islam does guarantee freedom of religion, freedom to your own opinions and freedom to express your opinions.

"Islam aims to free humans from being enslaved by other humans and to serve only Allah,” he said.

He stressed that this freedom does not mean one can freely break laws, religious laws and go against moral values to commit crimes such as stealing and raping.

"The world will be in chaos if all these laws are ignored, the freedom that we want is freedom of humanity and not animalistic freedom,” he said.

Wan Salim was responding to a report by G25 titled "Administration of Matters Pertaining to Islam” that had topics on the legality of the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim), the role of the Malay monarchy in the administration of Islam, racial intolerance, religious education and apostasy laws.

It was stated in the 281-page report that state laws penalising apostasy were inconsistent with the Federal Constitution which guarantees freedom of religion.