Marina Mahatir, human rights activist and daughter of Mahathir Mohammed | Photo: YouTube
Malaysian rights activist Marina Mahathir has criticised the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail over her comments saying that LGBTI rights should be considered haram (forbidden) in Malaysia.
Marina is a well-known rights campaigner and supporter of LGBTI rights in Malaysia.
She is also the daughter of Malaysia’s prime minister, Mahathir Mohamed.
In response to the comments by Wan Azizah, Marina tweeted, ‘Dear @drwanazizah, did you just call a lot of people including me who have shown the slightest bit of compassion towards marginalized people in our society haram??’
Earlier this week Wan Azizah said that it was haram for Muslims to support the LGBTI community and LGBTI rights in the Muslim-majority country.
‘Most important this, for us, as a Muslim, it is haram… I do not condone it,’ Wan Azizah told local radio station, BFM.
Dear @drwanazizah , did you just call a lot of people including me who have shown the slightest bit of compassion towards marginalized people in our society haram??
— Marina Mahathir (@netraKL) 30 August 2018
‘Respect people who are different’
Marina also tweeted an article by the Nikkei Asia Review with a quote from Wan Azizah’s husband and prime minister-in-waiting, Anwar Ibrahim.
‘Malaysian society, he said, must live with different beliefs and ways of life and must respect people who are different, including gays, bisexuals and those who identify as transgender,’ Anwar is quoted as saying. Marina wrote at the end of this tweet ‘How now @drwanazizah?’
“Malaysian society, he said, must live with different beliefs and ways of life and must respect people who are different, including gays, bisexuals and those who identify as transgender.” How now @drwanazizah ? https://t.co/U0BSJFjnRk
— Marina Mahathir (@netraKL) 30 August 2018
Ongoing saga
Disputes over LGBTI rights in Malaysia have courted numerous headlines in recent weeks.
Last month, portraits of two LGBTI activists carrying the Malaysian national flag were removed from a popular arts festival under the orders of the religious affairs minister.
This caused an instant backlash from LGBTI rights campaigners and members of the arts community, some of whom (including Marina) asked for their portraits to also be removed in a show of solidarity.
The removal of the activists’ portraits also set off a war of words between rights campaigners and Islamic leaders.
In August, Wan Azizah also made headlines when discussing LGBTI rights in Malaysia by saying the LGBTI community should be tolerated, as long as LGBTI ‘practices’ were kept behind closed doors. She also discussed the Malaysian statute banning homosexuality, Section 377A, a remnant of the British colonial era law.
Wan Azizah’s husband, Anwar, has been charged and sentenced twice for sodomy under Section 377A while he was an opposition politician. He has always maintained his innocence, and said his imprisonment was due to persecution by political rivals in the former government.
