Portrait of Henry VIII (public domain, Wiki Commons) TO understand the origins of Malaysia’s sodomy laws, a short trip down British history is required. Henry VIII (1491-1547), the most handsome man in all of Christendom, tried for some years to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. A spectacular and violent [...]

KUALA LUMPUR, 24 July 2009: The prosecution today succeeded in getting a stay of execution of a High Court order to supply the documents sought by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in his sodomy trial, pending the disposal of its appeal at the Court of Appeal. High Court Judge Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, in granting [...]

KUALA LUMPUR, 16 July 2009: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim succeeded in his bid to obtain documents and evidence on his sodomy case at the High Court here today but failed to get a sample of the specimen taken from the complainant, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan. Justice Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, in allowing Anwar’s application [...]

MASS hypocrisy season comes and goes in Malaysia with the regularity of the monsoon or the haze. While we entertain the polite fiction of being a semi-civilised nation with a few shopping malls, we conveniently forget that ours is a political culture mired in the mores and norms of hypocrisy. The public display of normative [...]

KUALA LUMPUR, 22 June 2009: History was almost made when a government motion on the DNA Identification Bill was one vote short of being defeated in Parliament today. A provisional amendment to Sections 2 and 3 of the Bill, proposed by the government, was passed by a sliver-thin one-vote majority. Forty-eight Members of Parliament (MPs) voted [...]

KUALA LUMPUR, 6 March 2009: Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim filed an appeal today against the High Court’s order that his sodomy case be tried in the High Court. The notice of appeal filed at the High Court Registry here at 10.40am through SN Nair and Partners. Yesterday, High Court judge Datuk Mohamad Zabidin [...]