At this stage, the right place to look is not at Mr Anwar himself but at the process by which he has been brought to trial, the laws under which he has been held, and the light both of these things cast on the conduct of politics in Malaysia.

ECONOMIST: The shaming of Malaysia | The

But for Dr Mahathir the dispute goes much further than party politics, turning as it does on his vision of a modernised Malaysia with a modernised, tolerant Islam.

ECONOMIST: Malaysia

The contest between theocratic politics and a notionally secular state looks even more unequal in another ex-British land, Malaysia, where freedom of choice in religion is enshrined in the federal constitution, but Islamic law is imposed with growing strictness on the Muslim majority.

ECONOMIST: Religious conversions