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 […]
India
Baca label dulu?
BILA saya berumur tujuh tahun, ibu kepada rakan sekelas saya amat terhibur mendengar saya berceloteh dalam bahasa Hokkien dengan anaknya. “Kamu ini orang (bangsa) apa?” dia bertanya dalam bahasa Hokkien. “Saya ini orang putih (Inggeris),” saya menjawab. Dia tertawa terbahak-bahak. Tapi saya serius! Benar, saya boleh berbahasa Malaysia dan Hokkien, tetapi saya bertutur dengan ibu […]
Rethinking Malaysia’s sodomy laws
THEY’RE colonial relics, they’re rarely invoked, and other Asian countries have effectively taken them off the books. But because Malaysia’s sodomy laws are tangled up in politics and religion, they’re probably not going anywhere for a while. In 2007, Singapore modified their sodomy laws, expressed in Section 377a of the island-state’s Penal Code, to exclude […]
Battling the lobotomy of Malaysia
MALAYSIAN identity is a central concept in Marion D’Cruz‘s life work. She’s a founding member of the Five Arts Centre, which has played a key role in developing boundary-pushing Malaysian local theatre. Her works of choreography often have political themes, such as 2003’s War on Iraq. And as a teacher at colleges and universities around […]
Man hits wife with hammer over bad chapati
NEW DELHI, 29 May 2009: In another case of domestic violence, a man tried to kill his wife by battering her with a hammer and throwing her out of his first-floor residence for serving bad chapati. Sanjay Singh, who works as a photographer in eastern Delhi, was reported to have returned home for lunch yesterday […]
Man hammers nail into pregnant wife’s head
NEW DELHI, 13 May 2009: A young trader was detained after he was alleged to have hammered a nail into his pregnant wife’s head in what police suspect could be a dowry-related crime. The incident happened in Hisar in the northern state of Rajasthan, where Joginder Singh, 27, along with his mother, had been harassing […]
13 ISA detainees freed (Updated 7.33pm)
Updated at 7.33pm, 5 April 2009 R Kenghadharan of Hindraf waving to supporters as he was brought out of Kamunting detention centre at 1.20pm today. Kenghadharan had been under ISA detention since December 2007 (Pic by Raj Kumar, courtesy of theSun) TAIPING, 5 April 2009: All the 13 Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees who were […]
“I don’t feel deculturalised”
GURMIT Singh, 66-year-old environmental activist, says, “There’s never been any stage of my teen or adult life when I wasn’t part of some organisation.” A prominent student leader in the 1960s and 1970s, Gurmit is former secretary-general of the National Human Rights Society of Malaysia (Hakam). He got into environmental advocacy in 1974, long before […]
Defections, deaths, dengue
FROM 26 Jan to 2 Feb 2009, the vernacular presses focused on defections from political parties, deaths in police custody, the war in Sri Lanka, and the dengue outbreak in Malaysia. The Malay press also discussed the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslim groups. Click on the BFM 89.9 audio report of Found in […]
Death and the horrors of war
GLOOMY news dominated the Tamil papers for the week of 26 Jan to 1 Feb 2009. A Kugan’s death, the ongoing war in Sri Lanka, and the death of a young man in Chennai were widely discussed in the papers. Death in detention Like all other papers in the country, 22-year-old Kugan’s death while in […]
