One of the police reports lodged against Datuk Ibrahim Ali for his Bible-burning exhortation was made by a citizens’ initiative. Why would these individuals attempt to take the Perkasa chief on?

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak recently told Chinese Malaysians they are “citizens with full rights” and that those who call them pendatang are “lunatics”. But how do Chinese Malaysians having “full rights” accord with the “Malay agenda” that Najib also claims to champion? To what threat is Najib referring when he warns Malay Malaysians that they may become squatters in their own land? And what has Najib said previously about organisations such as Perkasa that have openly chastised Chinese Malaysians for being ungrateful to the Umno-led government?

THE 31 March 2012 seminar for Pendidikan Islam teachers at the Johor education department, which originally claimed a Christian threat to Muslims, raises important ironies and questions. In a pluralistic public space, who gets to claim what, and why? Hwa Yue-Yi writes in her column, Work in Progress.

IF there is one word that best explains and describes the virulent reaction towards Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, that word, for me, would be fear. That’s right. Fear. In fact, it would seem from the continuing attacks against the Bersih 2.0 chairperson that this fear is such that she should be detained without trial under the [...]

HOW does one insult Islam in Malaysia? And how does one insult Muslims in Malaysia? Over the past few years and increasingly over the past months, the state, politicians and pressure groups like Perkasa have demonstrated just how to do either one or both. For the most part, these incidents are an insult to Muslims [...]

Waging war against the king. In cahoots with foreign conspirators. Possible communists. Planning to overthrow the government. Illegal T-shirts. Bersih 2.0 seems to embody many evils to the authorities, who have arrested more than 100 in attempts to stop Bersih’s 9 July 2011 march. But have the authorities gone overboard in demonising the rally? What about Malaysians’ constitutional right to freedom of expression and right to peaceable assembly?