Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – When his online talk on how multicultural performing arts should transcend race was cancelled in early June by the Islamic centre of a prominent Malaysian university, Ramli Ibrahim, was both puzzled and angered.
An official statement by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), one of the country’s most highly regarded public universities, said that “the organisers have been instructed by the university’s Islamic centre to cancel the programme over undisclosed reasons.”
Ramli, the celebrated artistic director of the Kuala Lumpur-based Sutra Dance Theatre, who is a Malay Muslim and globally renowned for his choreography of Indian classical dance, notably the Odissi style, went online to call UTM’s Islamic centre “narrow-minded” and “bigoted”. The centre did not respond to Al Jazeera’s questions about the cancellation.
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Poster kontroversi: Polis akan panggil Fahmi Reza
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IPOH - Polis akan memanggil pereka grafik dan aktivis Fahmi Reza pada minggu depan berhubung poster Menteri Besar Perak, Datuk Saarani Mohamad yang dimuat naiknya di Facebook dan Twitter, baru-baru ini.
Ketua Polis Perak, Datuk Mior Faridalathrash Wahid berkata, pihaknya telah memanggil beberapa individu sebelum ini untuk memberi keterangan bagi melengkapkan kertas siasatan. Kita akan memanggil suspek utama dalam kes ini untuk memberi keterangan, katanya ringkas ketika diminta mengulas mengenai perkembangan siasatan kes berkenaan pada sidang media di pekarangan Ibu Pejabat Polis Kontinjen Perak di sini pada Ahad.
Pada 17 Jun lepas, Ketua Pemuda UMNO Perak, Mohd Ariff Abdul Majid membuat laporan polis di Ibu Pejabat Polis Daerah Kuala Kangsar berhubung poster berkenaan yang disifatkan sebagai fitnah dan sengaja menimbulkan kebencian terhadap Menteri Besar Perak.
IPOH (Bernama): The police will call graphic designer and activist Fahmi Reza next week to record his statement on a poster uploaded on Facebook and Twitter regarding Perak Menteri Besar Datuk Saarani Mohamad.
Perak police chief Datuk Mior Faridalathrash Wahid said several individuals had already been called to facilitate investigation on the case. We will summon the main suspect in the case to give his statement,” he said when asked on the progress of the case investigation during a media conference here on Sunday (June 27).
On June 1, Perak UMNO Youth chief Mohd Ariff Abdul Majid lodged a police report at the Kuala Kangsar district police headquarters on the poster which he described as slanderous and a deliberate attempt to incite hatred against the Perak Menteri Besar.
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