Malaysian Man Wins Right To Challenge Ban on Homosexuality

A man in Malaysia has been given the right to challenge a ban on sex “against the order of nature” in the fight for gay rights in the Muslim country.

The gay community has suffered in Malaysia and Islamic law has often targeted the country’s gay community, with the country experiencing a rise in arrests and punishments ranging from caning to jailing. Same-sex acts are illegal in Malaysia, a country which has a dual-track legal system, with “Islamic criminal and family laws applicable to Muslims running alongside civil laws,” as ‘Business Times’ report.

Now, a Muslim man whose name has been withheld, filed a lawsuit after he was arrested in 2018 for attempting to engage in same-sex acts, something he denies. The man argues that the central Selagor state, where he was arrested, doe not have the power to enforce an Islamic ban on “intercourse against the order of nature" when same-sex acts were already a crime under civil laws.

“This will be the first,” his lawyer Surendra Ananth said. “(If we win), the state law will be struck down and the criminal charges in the (Islamic) shariah court should be dropped,” said Mr Surendra.

LGBTIQ+ Network, a Malaysian coalition of 12 LGBT+ rights groups, lauded the court's decision to hear the case, saying it would help put a stop to an “ongoing national trend” of using the ‘unnatural sex’ laws to target LGBT+ people.

“It is clear this state law is being used by authorities to disproportionately criminalise marginalised and persecuted communities based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” it said in a statement.

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