THE cancellation of the Better Beer Festival is an infringement on an individual’s rights as it dictates how a person should lead his or her life, said former Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram.

“I think the sooner we realise that we are in fact a secular country and not a Muslim country, and one faith should not impose its will upon the way others ought to behave,” he said at a Bar Council forum held at Kuala Lumpur last night.

Sri Ram said the cancellation of the festival infringes on article 3 of the constitution, as it dictates how a person should lead one’s life when it is “nobody’s business”.

“We are lawyers, we are not politicians,” he said.

“We do not care what the politicians say but from a lawyer’s point of view, it is an infringement of a person’s right.”

However, another panellist at the forum, Islamic Renaissance Front director Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa, said the matter was not a straightforward issue on personal rights, calling it a “very sticky issue”.

“You will not be able to satisfy every part of society, whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims, friends of Muslims or non-Muslims, whether they are rural or not,” he said.

“When we say that we should allow people to have festivals like this, for example the beer festival, where do we put a demarcation that you can have this but you can’t have a gay festival, for example.

“We would not be able to know where to stop, where to put a point of demarcation,” said Ahmad.

The Better Beer Festival which was scheduled to be held on October 6 and 7 was cancelled following uproar by Islamic groups and political sensitivities surrounding the event.

Islamist party PAS slammed the event, saying it could lead to the propagation of vice.

The party’s central committee member Dr Riduan Mohd Nor said society’s intolerance towards immoral activities must be taken seriously instead of allowing a small group to fulfil its desires.

The festival’s organiser, MyBeer (M) Sdn Bhd, said Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) officials instructed the cancellation of the event over security concerns.

The festival, which was supposed to be held in Publika Shopping Gallery, would have featured 250 craft beers from 43 breweries worldwide. The organisers also expected a crowd of 6,000. – September 21, 2017.