HOW reliable is the recent claim by Perak mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria that a political party was drafting a new constitution threatening the special position of Malay Malaysians? In 2006, he had also spread unfounded allegations that Muslims had been converted and were to be baptised.

Corrected 11.35am on 25 Aug 2010 ON 20 Aug 2010, a three-person bench of the Court of Appeal unanimously denied the application of S Kaliammal, the widow of Mount Everest climber M Moorthy, to determine her late husband’s religious status. Moorthy passed away on 20 Dec 2005 after entering into a coma. Just before his [...]

THE day after police forcefully broke up peaceful candlelight vigils held on 1 Aug 2010 against the Internal Security Act (ISA), and arrested 36 people in Petaling Jaya and Penang, I followed a debate on Twitter. It was between a young lawyer and a Barisan Nasional (BN) Member of Parliament (MP). The gist of their [...]

PETALING JAYA, 20 July 2010: A proposed move to corporatise the Orang Asli Affairs Department, known by its Malay acronym JHEOA, to take charge of land development for the Orang Asli will impoverish the indigenous peoples. Centre for Orang Asli Concerns (COAC) coordinator Dr Colin Nicholas said corporatisation was likely to be among the amendments [...]

THE Nut Graph started posting six questions to 222 Members of Parliament (MP) in January 2010 for its MP Watch: Eye on Parliament project. The project — a likely first of its kind in Malaysia — aims to record MPs’ positions on key issues of democracy as well as provide MPs a platform for voters [...]

PETALING JAYA, 23 June 2010: Batu Member of Parliament Chua Tian Chang will keep his seat if the Election Commission (EC) refuses to declare it vacant, said constitutional lawyer Tommy Thomas. This is despite Thomas’s view that Chua was disqualified as an MP when the High Court fined him RM2,000 for biting a police officer. [...]