Talk:Anwar Ibrahim sodomy trials

1998 trial
The section on the 1998 trial is not comprehensive and seems to contain very random information. I think we need to focus on improving this section and making it more complete.Monkeyassault (talk) 00:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Too many sections
There seem to be way too many sections that do not appear to all have rational titles or flow that makes sense. Monkeyassault (talk) 00:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Because several individuals thought it was a good idea to transfer the information from the main article - Anwar Ibrahim and bringing it here. I have no issues about making this article much more coherent and easier reading flow.  At the same time its is in the best interest to try to retain as much information on the article as possible without deleting the information.  If some of the information does not have proper referencing, its in the best interest to find the necessary sources.  Roman888 (talk) 18:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I strongly agree with User:Roman888, at least in the form in which the article appears as of my present writing (13 Feb. 2015). It seems to all be relevant material, surprisingly balanced in coverage (though I do sense a bias).  In extremely sensitive cases, with significant political impact or overtones, it is important to provide as much detail from both sides as possible -- especially in the delicate complexity of legal cases, where the entire case (conviction or acquittal) can turn on the slightest detail.


 * In half a century, when this person has faded substantially in importance, and the case is of relatively little interest to anyone, it will make sense to trim many of the details. But while this is developing news, in a politically-charged legal event, just about every potentially decisive detail matters, and is important and (presently) of encylopedic value.  Withholding any detail that has arguably had an impact on the case, or yet may, or has an impact on the public opinion or political outcomes, is NOT adequate, nor justified.


 * If this were a case involving the imprisonment of an American Vice President, would we have considered ANY of these details excessive? This individual is of no less importance in Malaysia.  Treating his case less seriously would be an act of contempt towards him, and towards the people and government of Malaysia.


 * Zxtxtxz (talk) 07:55, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Move 2008 trials
Shall we move the 2008 trial to the top? Having the events run in chronological order makes a lot of sense but so does putting the most recent info a the top as most people will come here in order to get info on the second trial. How should we handle this? Monkeyassault (talk) 05:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Leave the format as it is until there is sufficient consensus or agreement to move the 2008 trial to the top of the page. If there is enough material added for the 2008 trial in the near future, it might be better to split both the 1998 and 2008 trials to 2 separate articles. Roman888 (talk) 18:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah. I was just thinking the same thing about creating two articles. Monkeyassault (talk) 02:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Length of this article
The overwhelming level of detail and increasing length of this page are troubling. The detail, such as including tweets, seems to me to run into the problem of WP:NOTNEWS. The subject of the article is a WP:BLP and the very controversial and even speculative nature of this article concerns me. Even without that, I think the essay WP:TLDR should be considered. I posted a request for an opinion about this article on WP:BLP/N but so far no one has responded. Before I look at how to perhaps streamline this article, I am interested in hearing from others working on this page intend for this article to do. Maybe then I can contribute to it meaningfully. --Spinosaurus aegyptiacus (talk) 17:41, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I have no issues if you wish to streamline the article in the near future. If you have issues with certain sections, please bring in up in this discussion. The issue of WP:NOTNEWS runs into a lot of challenges, as a lot of Malaysian articles or news are controversial to say the least.  Its difficult to find an objective or neutral point of view, government-run mainstream media vs independent online news media. If there are areas which are not properly referenced or sourced, then by all means you are free to bring it up.  But I would take issue if you delete whole sections without discussing it first.  One possibility is that we should split the 1998 and the 2008 allegations into separate articles.  This is if we run into a situation that this page takes a longer time to load when trying to edit it. Roman888 (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I made some effort to start streamlining some of the 2008 section today, making it easier for people who are not following it very closely to understand. I am also being careful to make sure the text matches what is in the sources, especially because of WP:BLP. One concern that I have which I have not yet tried to deal with is that the section goes into exacting detail abou courtroom events, such as motions filed and counter-motions and various arguments. An overview of the issues in play is certainly important, but a play-by-play is too much for anyone who wants to understand what is going on to read. If someone wants to know every last detail, that is one reason we link to the sources. So, I am not going to start on that just yet, but that is going to be something I look at soon. --Spinosaurus aegyptiacus (talk) 17:54, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem
This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:46, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

accuser's name
The accuser's surname/patronymic is a little confusing. The article refers to him as 'Saiful' which doesn't seem to make sense as a complete name, but I don't speak Melayu... Perhaps a Melayu speaker can comment on whether "Saiful" makes sense by itself in Malaysia.

'Saiful' is Arabic for "Sword of the..." and in Arabic is invariably followed by a noun; it's incomplete as a name without the noun. For example "Saiful Diin" "Sword of the Faith", or "Saiful Islam", etc... The alleged sodomee's name is apparently "Saiful Bukhari" which, somewhat confusingly/amusingly means "Sword of the Steamy One", or more likely "Sword of the Guy From Bukhar".

Shouldn't he be cited as Saiful Bukhari rather than just Saiful? --jackbrown (talk) 10:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)


 * In the Malaysian/Malay context, Saiful is accepted as a name without reference to its usage in Arabic. The same goes with Anwar, Mahathir and Najib, which is the way Malaysian media and people commonly address them. Referring to your example and as I understand it, Saif al-Islam as an Arabic name makes more sense since it is "complete". Not that all Malays name their children with a random Arabic word, but they should not be taken too literally. Hytar (talk) 00:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Technical intelligence
The information about technical intelligence establishing his 2008 activities is in the 'international reactions' section, because that intelligence was gathered and analysed by non-Malaysia sources. Is there any case for it to be fit in some other part? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.151.54.162 (talk • contribs)
 * Singapore hasn't been part of Malaysia since the 1960s and the second trial didn't even commence till 2010 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.0.8.155 (talk) 10:22, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

List of objections can be found in various edit summaries: And frankly, dealing with an editor who made this glorious edit makes me sick and is a waste of any neutral and impartial editor's time. — Yk Yk Yk  talk ~ contrib 06:19, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * "private views of senior Singaporean officials" are not reliable
 * rv. because (1) WP:UNDUE: not an issue at all; (2) very misleading phrasing – not qualifying it as a leaked cable
 * "private views of senior Singaporean officials" as stated in article are neither reliable nor notable, please gain consensus to add to article
 * on 2nd thought, per WWGB, this is utterly unreliable, shady and gossipy crumbs which has not been picked up by any major media other than the one which broke it
 * other editors reject this, please gain consensus before adding again
 * If we take the most reliable sourcing around -- say the Sydney Morning Herald -- it's an extreme case of Chinese whispers. A US diplomatic cable leaked to the press says that Singaporean spooks told Australian spooks that Anwar was "set up". That's about four chains of hearsay, arising from the "belief" of a foreign spy agency. Its reporting on this article in a defamatory context is completely inappropriate. --Mkativerata (talk) 06:32, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Views of Australian, US and Singaporean governments are relevant to the part of the article dealing with 'international reactions'. Those views are that the opposition leader gave in to homosexual temptations to commence the sodomy affair with his aide that the aide confessed to and that other benefiting parties engineered the circumstances to act on that temptation. We're served to give this just exposure by providing link to the verbatim transcript of where those views were expressed.Flatulotech (talk) 10:45, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You are mistaking public and private views and what news organisations and Wikipedia can accept as verifiable material. Has the CIA, SID and ONA made on-the-record, indisputable statements about Anwar? The anwser is obviously no. Your edits completely mischaracterises their views as open and public. It's not wrong to believe that they privately hold those views, but it's wrong to blow privately held views way out of proportion. The "verbatim transcript" claim is also wrong because people who quote conversations for diplomatic cables are not held to the same standard as, say, a journalist or author whose work is publicly accountable. Not to mention the WP:UNDUE weight you have placed on the info which has been largely neglected by mainstream reporting. As highlighted above, you motives are clearly questionable (I hate to single out editors personally, but that edit was sickening) and you should cease editing Anwar Ibrahim-related pages. — Yk Yk Yk  talk ~ contrib 11:07, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The content of a diplomatic cable is something that is on the record. It is information shared in Singapore's intelligence community, then to Australia, then to the US and now available to the world in general. Through declassification, such source material eventually is publicised. In this case it has been publicised through investigative journalism. The material has been reworked to a discrete subsection dealing with foreign intelligence agencies and direct quoting of the source record's content as it deals with the article subject matter.Flatulotech (talk) 04:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * "It is information shared in Singapore's intelligence community, then to Australia, then to the US and now available to the world in general." That very sentence shows how thin this all is and why we should not mention it. Just because a chain of Chinese whispers gets dribbled into a newspaper doesn't mean we report it in a manner defamatory to a living person. --Mkativerata (talk) 04:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I totally agree. Gossip shared among faceless spooks is not encyclopedic. WWGB (talk) 04:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, go ahead and read on-the-record because you don't know what it means. Publicisation of hearsay does not make hearsay reliable information. Intelligence community? Hah! Where's the WMDs in Iraq? — Yk Yk Yk  talk ~ contrib 06:35, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

General cleanup and clarification
The term "sodomy" does not relate to any particular activity and is too broad in meaning to be of any encyclopedic value. The exact (alledged?) criminal acts should be clearly defined, and it should also be pointed out how such acts are criminal in Malaysia, as definitions and legislation concerning acts that may be labelled as sodomy by no means are universal. If this case involves homosexual activity, it should be clearly stated, as that in major parts of the world is not labelled "sodomy" and is not illegal, whereas sexual intercourse with animals, and rape, may be. Jono799 (talk) 23:56, 16 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Excellent point; I generally agree, I think. The same is true of the broad and widely-varying use of the term "rape" (even varying widely, from jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction, and over time, even within a major country, such as the U.S.). However, two things should be recognized:


 * 1.) The need for specificity does not necessarily excuse unnecessarily graphic description, especially in disputed claims.


 * 2.) The term "sodomy" may have legal standing in the case that creates an intentional legal ambiguity, to cover whatever specific charges the government thinks they can use at whatever point in the trial. For instance, if they're not getting anywhere asserting one form of sodomy, they could concievably (depending upon the legal system of the country in question), shift focus to other acts (especially other acts occuring at the same time and place as those previously alleged), without having to necessarily abandon that charge of "sodomy," and the case as a whole.


 * Zxtxtxz (talk) 07:37, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

See also LGBT Rights
International human rights commentators have condemned the country's 20 year prison sentence, and lashings, for sodomy, and this case highlights pre-existing criticism of the sodomy law. has removed the see also section with it's link LGBT rights in Malaysia, because they believed it suggested Anwar Ibrahim is LGBT.

Human Rights Watch "This is the fourth time Anwar has been charged under section 377 of the penal code, a law that discriminates against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The article has been invoked only seven times since 1938, according to research by the Women’s Candidacy Initiative. The willingness of successive Malaysian governments to use the law repeatedly against one high-profile political opponent highlights the danger it poses so long as it remains on the books, Human Rights Watch said.

“By persisting in its political vendetta using section 377, the government is also denigrating Malaysia’s LGBT community,” Robertson said. “Using an archaic and discriminatory law in order to score political points shows Prime Minister Najib’s encouragement of intolerance under his rule.”"

HRW does not suggest that Anwar is LGBT, but suggests that the law is mostly used politically, and should be repealed because it is discriminatory to LGBT people anyway. The link to LGBT rights in Malaysia is relevant and DUE, and should be included in a way that does not suggest that Anwar is LGBT -- Aronzak (talk) 10:56, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

The government appealed the innocent verdict?
I was flabbergasted that the government could appeal when the defendant is found innocent. Was this due to some legal technicality? __209.179.46.224 (talk) 19:39, 15 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually I think the US is one of the few countries that does not permit prosecutors to appeal against acquittals. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:36, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

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