Malaysia’s parliament on Monday voted to scrap the mandatory death penalty and reduced the number of offenses punishable by hanging, saying capital punishment as a deterrent had not lowered crime.
Former Malaysian leader Najib Razak on Friday lost his final judicial chance to get out of prison when the country’s highest court rejected his request to review its 2022 decision to incarcerate him for corruption, although his lawyer claimed Najib’s legal hopes were still alive.
An International Women’s Day march, a film about a Muslim character exploring other religions’ views on the afterlife, and an interfaith program have all recently become targets of religious conservatives’ outrage in Muslim-majority Malaysia.
Malaysian Michelle Yeoh made history on Sunday night by becoming the first Asian to win an Academy Award for best actress in a leading role, delighting her compatriots and fans around the world.
Malaysia’s anti-corruption agency arrested former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Thursday on allegations of abuse of power before releasing him on bail.
Malaysia has set aside more than U.S. $2 million in the 2023 budget to counter Islamophobia by translating and printing the Quran in several languages and distributing copies internationally.
Malaysia has deported 114 Muslim Myanmar nationals who will be persecuted by the ruling military when they return, although they are not Rohingya, their lawyer said Thursday.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s cabinet has agreed to amend the constitution so children born to Malaysian mothers with foreign fathers can be granted citizenship, a right thus far only granted to Malaysian fathers, a ministerial statement said Saturday.
Malaysian rights activists have lambasted the government’s decision to ban two children’s books because they allegedly promoted “LGBTQ lifestyles” and a novel for purportedly being “harmful to Malaysian morals.”
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim breezed through a vote of confidence in parliament on Monday, sealing his legitimacy exactly a month after the general election returned a hung parliament.