Melbourne, Australia – In Christian majority countries like Australia, Easter is usually a time of family gatherings and celebration.

However, a day before Easter Sunday, hundreds of people took to the streets in major Australian cities to protest against what they see as the rising influence of Islam.

Under the banner “Reclaim Australia”, protesters, many waving Australian flags, chanted against Islamic law and held signs reading “No More Mosques” and “Islam is an Enemy of the West.”

Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/04/unease-australia-islamophobia-150409075748404.html

(Jakarta) – Indonesian Ahmadis are no strangers to persecution, with attacks and discrimination rife, but leader Iskandar Gumay hopes better days are ahead for the minority Muslim sect under new President Joko Widodo.

The cleric has witnessed attempts to torch his mosque and seen worshippers elsewhere prevented from burying their dead, however he believes a draft law shows Indonesia’s leader is committed to tackling religious intolerance.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, has seen its image as tolerant and pluralist suffer due to a spike in religious violence. As well as Ahmadis, minority Muslim Shiites and Christians have been targeted in the Sunni-majority country.

Full article – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-2939127/Indonesias-minorities-hope-safer-future-Widodo.html

Sydney, Australia – The indigenous people of Australia constitute only 2.5 percent of the country’s total population, however, 27 percent of those in prison across the country are of Aboriginal heritage.

The rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration is now 18 times higher than that of non-indigenous Australians.

Last month, the Law Council of Australia declared the rate of indigenous imprisonment, which has grown by more than 50 percent in the last decade, a“national emergency”. 

But for many indigenous people, this crisis in the relationship between their communities and the criminal justice system is nothing new.

Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/australia-indigenous-incarceration-crisis-2014121472549972623.html

Full article – http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/malaysia-indigenous-hit-hard-deforestation-150329101349832.html

The Diplomat’s Jarni Blakkarly spoke recently with Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim about the likelihood that he will return to jail, political oppression in Malaysia, and the upcoming visit to Malaysia by U.S. President Barack Obama.

You’ve recently had your prior acquittal on sodomy charges overturned by the courts and been sentenced to five years in jail. As this case has been going back and forth for many years now, how likely do you think it is that you will find yourself behind bars again?

Full article – http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/interview-anwar-ibrahim/

There’s a little section later in the book where this disembodied voice tells us a kind of hallucinatory story about a bunch of feral dogs that are taught by a space-man to dig up the bones of massacred black-fellas and bring them to the doors of the town Councillors and the Mayor.

“The Mayor and the Councillors keep burying the bones and the dogs keep bringing them back, again and again. I sort of see myself and other artist like me like those dogs, who are bringing up the past and putting it in front of people’s faces.”

From rapper to spoken word poet and now to novelist, Omar Musa continues to defy expectations. When asked if he is trying to avoid being pinned down by genre, he tells Peril Magazine, “Yeah, a moving target is harder to hit. Also it’s just the arts are so diverse that it’s really exciting for me to experiment with form.”

His debut novel Here Comes The Dogs was published by Penguin and has received rave reviews and been reprinted after only a month. He talks gratefully about the privilege of a having a novel published and the pressures of sitting down to write it.

Full article – http://peril.com.au/featured/here-comes-omar-musa/

On Friday 7 November last year after a long legal battle, three Malaysian trans women secured a historic victory as a Federal Appeals court ruled that a state Islamic law criminalising trans-women is unconstitutional.

Malaysia has a two-track legal system with separate Islamic laws on civil matters only decided by the conservative religious ministry which apply only to the Muslim population.

The Federal Appeals court ruled that the Islamic law in the southern state of Negri Sembilan under which ‘a man dressing as woman’ could be punishable by up to three years imprisonment, breached the constitution. Despite many discriminatory laws still in place across the country and with the government set to launch its own challenge to ruling, activists have celebrated the ruling as a legal precedent.

Archer caught up with Thilaga, who wanted to only go by one name, from the grassroots trans-rights organisation Justice for Sisters who organised the case.

Full Article – http://archermagazine.com.au/2015/04/malaysian-trans-rights-activists-fight-back-against-the-state/