The coalition who have ruled Malaysia for 56 years, Barisan Nasional (BN), won yesterday's general election.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, who has frequently spouted anti-gay rhetoric during the election campaign and before, keeps his position as leader of the country.

Images of a man resembling Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim having a sexual encounter with a man were posted on a blog last week, but he strongly denies that he is the man in the photograghs.

A judge in Malaysia has ruled in favor of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim who sued a newspaper for saying he supports LGBT rights.

'The articles... were distorted, incorrect version of the events... and taken out of context,' said Justice VT Singham in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur, The Malaysia Insider reports.

As a year of highs and lows for human rights for LGBT people in Asia comes to an end, Gay Star News talks to Phil Robertson, deputy director, Asia of Human Rights Watch.

Several delegates attacked the LGBT community during speeches at Malaysia's ruling party's national conference which ended on Saturday.

Members of United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) labelled 'LGBT' as against Islam in the country that has the most openly expressed homophobic political rhetoric in Asia.

The leader of the opposition in Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim, in court to clear his name from the ‘defamation’ that he supports gay rights, has accused the top-selling Malay language newspaper in the country of political bias.

Anwar said the majority of shareholders and the board of directors of Utusan Malaysia are connected to the UMNO, the biggest political party in the Barisan Nasional coalition that rules the country, the Malaysian Insider reports.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called out Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on saying last week that gay people should be discriminated against.

Deputy director of HRW (Asia division) Phil Robertson said that Anwar was ‘fundamentally wrong’.

‘While this might be a good vote-getting strategy in some parts of Malaysia,’ Robertson said in a statement.

Malaysian Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has told a Malay court that homosexuals should be discriminated against, despite past comments to the BBC in which he called the country’s sodomy laws archaic and in need of reform.

Ibrahim was appearing in court as part of a defamation action against the Utusan Malaysia newspaper which had run a series of articles in the wake of those comments, which Ibrahim believes defamed his character as being divergent from Islam and unfit to hold office.

An Australian senator who visited Kuala Lumpur last weekend to witness an anti-corruption demonstration and to meet with the leader of the opposition found himself attacked in a state-controlled newspaper article.

Nick Xenophon, an independent senator for South Australia, says the article is a 'vile defamation' and he is seeking legal action. 'I'm gobsmacked that someone could stoop so low,' he added.

Thousands, including hundreds of students, gathered at an anti-LGBT rally outside Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, witnessing speeches clamouring for intolerance of sexual minorities in Malaysia.  

Transsexuals in Malaysia are being terrorised by a series of attacks from gangs of weapon-wielding aggressors.

At least 13 people have been assaulted in the last six months. Six police reports have been made but there have been no arrests, despite one victim handing in an ID card dropped by her attacker.

The latest attack happened on Wednesday when a transgender woman, Rozi, was set upon by six men on motorbikes and beaten with chains, steel bars and crash helmets in Kuantan in eastern Malaysia in the early hours of the morning.

Lawyers for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim contacted the Utusan Malaysia newspaper demanding they retract an article published last Sunday headlined 'Anwar discusses gay rights'.