Few good things will come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has now killed more than 2.2 million people worldwide. But one possible silver lining could be serious prison reform – including in Malaysia. In September 2020, an initially small COVID-19 cluster, centred around the Lahad Datu police headquarters and Tawau prison on the island of Borneo, quickly exploded into the biggest cluster of Malaysia’s second COVID-19 wave, infecting 1,146 people.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the Bangladesh capital on Tuesday in the biggest anti-France rally since President Emmanuel Macron defended cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.Muslims across the world have reacted furiously to Macron's robust defence of the right to mock religion following the murder of a French schoolteacher who had shown his pupils cartoons of the prophet.In Syria, people burned pictures of France's leader, tricolour flags were torched in the L

A Saudi court on Monday overturned five death sentences over journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder, in a final ruling that was condemned by his fiancée and slammed by a United Nations (UN) expert as a "parody of justice".Eight unnamed defendants were handed jail terms of between seven and 20 years in a verdict that comes after Khashoggi's sons "pardoned" the killers in May, paving the way for a less severe punishment.The court ruling underscores Saudi efforts to dr

Malaysia will this week host a summit of Muslim leaders billed as a forum to look at the Islamic world's problems, but it will be closely watched for Middle East power plays and their stance on China's Uighur minority.Leaders from Iran, Turkey, and Qatar will be among hundreds of delegates attending the three-day event set to discuss myriad challenges faced by Muslims.The summit has been pushed by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has long championed greater solidarity

Abdullah Rasul has so little contact with his family in China that it took three months for him to find out that his father was dead.Like other Uighur refugees from northwest China, Rasul, 35, who now lives in Istanbul, knows that making contact with relatives back home risks them coming under greater scrutiny from the authorities, or worse.The snippets of news he manages to receive through the restricted communication channels are terrifying, he says.Facebook is blocked in China, and relativ