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 [...]

UNTUK pertama kalinya saya menyambut Ramadan di Indonesia, negara yang mempunyai rakyat beragama Islam yang teramai di dunia. Lebih kurang 90% dari penduduknya yang seramai 270 juta orang ini beragama Islam. Namun, Indonesia tidak ada undang-undang menghukum orang yang makan dan minum di khalayak ramai semasa bulan puasa. Malah, kegiatan harian diteruskan seperti biasa. Konsert [...]

WHY were the three 8TV Ramadan ads so offensive? “I don’t get it,” more than one person said on the social network they were on. “Chill guys,” 8TV executive director and Media Prima chief executive officer of Alt Media Ahmad Izham Omar told critics on Twitter. “Don’t overthink the ads. It’s written, produced and directed [...]

IT so happened that this Ramadan I had to take an 18-hour flight to Vancouver to attend the wedding of a close friend’s only daughter. I wouldn’t normally choose to travel during Ramadan but it was a rare opportunity to see my friend’s happiness as she saw her daughter married off. I did tell a [...]

KARPAL Singh. Lim Guan Eng. Raja Petra Kamaruddin. Wong Chin Huat. These individuals have all been arrested or charged under Malaysia’s draconian Sedition Act. The Act was passed in 1948, at the height of the British colonial government’s struggle against the communists. But more than 60 years later, the wide-ranging and subjective law is still being used, whenever it’s convenient, to silence political opponents.

AND so Perkasa has made the news again. And this time by its own doing, not because a media bent on sensationalism tried to cultivate the Malay nationalist group in order to increase readership. In the latest of Perkasa moves, its Petaling chairperson, Zainal Abidin Ahmad, lodged a police report against a Protestant church in [...]