The following is an excerpt from "Taking Stock" in which organisers of Seksualiti Merdeka Pang Khee Teik and Jerome Kugan were interviewed by Melody Song from The Edge Malaysia shortly after the second annual sexuality rights festival was held Aug 12-16, 2009. For the full article, follow the link at the end of the page.

If you ask me who I’m really afraid of, I am most afraid of gay men,” says Pang Khee Teik. It’s a startling confession coming from the 36-year-old arts programme director of the Annexe Gallery, who had just days before organised the second annual Seksualiti Merdeka, an event aimed at affirming sexuality rights that first started in 2008.

Pang is not afraid of all gay men, however; just those who have given up exercising their rights to express their sexuality, and urging others to do the same.

“Some gay men feel that by being visible and out there, we are being crass. Others believe that being gay is a test of God and those who give in to their desires have failed. Some gay men said life is unfair anyway, so we should just put up and shut up.”

...

“The fear of being caught for being gay is not unfounded. Because people don’t understand their rights, and the authorities often misuse power to extort money... people are disempowered,” says Pang. “When they are disempowered, they panic. So they give in, they pay bribes.”

Pang and Kugan both attribute part of the disempowerment to negative portrayals of LGBT individuals in the media, and “witch hunts” carried out, especially by Malay-language newspapers such as the Aug 13 front-page sensational exposé in Harian Metro of a private party titled “Pesta lesbian” (lesbian festival).

“Often the local media censor words like ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ because they feel like we’re promoting homosexuality,” says Pang. “But you cannot ‘promote’ a biological function. We are not ashamed of promoting people being confident of whom they are.”