Amir’s acquittal follows a mixed prosecution pattern under Section 9(5) of the PAA, where charges for failing to give notice have often been withdrawn by the government but applied inconsistently across cases. In 2022, Parti Amanah Negara Youth chief Mohd Hasbie Muda, Batu PKR Youth chief Muhammad Sabda Suluh Lestari Yahya, and International Islamic University Malaysia Student Union president Muhammad Aliff Naif Mohd Fizam were charged over the Turun Malaysia rally but had their charges dropped in April 2023, less than a year after filing. In January 2025, student activist Fadhil Kasim was charged for organising the Gempur Rasuah Sabah protest, but the charge was withdrawn within three days amid the government’s stated commitment to amend Section 11 of the PAA. By contrast, Amir’s charge, filed in August 2022, was retained despite his January 2024 representation to withdraw it, suggesting selective prosecution. His case proceeded for nearly three years until the Federal Court’s July 2025 ruling striking down Section 9(5) as unconstitutional, which paved the way for his acquittal. This uneven trajectory highlights how decisions to proceed or withdraw Section 9(5) charges have been shaped less by consistent legal principles (e.g., proportionality, equality before the law) than by shifting political contexts — particularly when assemblies challenge the government on politically sensitive issues such as corruption scandals or the rising cost of living — and by prosecutorial discretion.

The SIS Forum name change reflects a longstanding pattern of religious institutions regulating public discourse—particularly when civil society invokes Islamic frameworks that challenge officially sanctioned interpretations to advance rights or reform. Since the 2014 fatwa, SIS Forum has faced exclusion from government policy consultations and faced reputational risks that limited its ability to carry out public-facing advocacy— including its freedoms of expression and association. The fatwa marked an unprecedented escalation—the first known instance of a state religious authority issuing a religious ruling against a named NGO registered as a company. It reflected an attempt to subject non-individual legal persons to Islamic legal and moral sanction, expanding religious authority beyond Syariah courts and Muslim individuals—within a broader legal environment (e.g., the Sedition Act, the Printing Presses and Publications Act) that already penalises critical discourse on religion, race, and royalty.

The fatwa’s directive for federal enforcement attempted to extend this reach into digital, corporate, and regulatory spaces, despite infringing federal laws. The SIS ruling mirrors recent constitutional rulings that reassert federal supremacy over religious overreach. In Nik Elin (2024), the Federal Court struck down 16 provisions of Kelantan’s Syariah Criminal Code for encroaching on federal criminal law. In Iki Putra (2021), it invalidated the Syariah provision that duplicated the Penal Code offence on sodomy. These rulings mark a fragile but vital line of protection for civil society actors advancing rights-based interpretations of Islam—even as state religious bodies push back to preserve dominance over public religious discourse.

The 2025 hunger strike reflects ongoing frustration over denial of right to fair trial for detainees due to the enforcement of SOSMA, as well as its socioeconomic impact on the detainees’ families. Similar concerns were raised during a hunger strike outside the same prison in 2023. That same year, then Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Ramkarpal Singh took the initiative to engage stakeholders, including NGOs and SOSMA detainees, on SOSMA amendments, leading to a set of recommendations submitted to the Home Ministry. Despite these interventions, no meaningful reforms followed, and the same grievances remained unresolved in 2025.  

Beyond the lack of progress on SOSMA, the response to the 2025 hunger strike also reflected a shift in how policymakers engage with affected families. In 2023, Ramkarpal personally met family members outside Sungai Buloh Prison whilst the hunger strike was ongoing, signalling a willingness to engage. In contrast, in 2025, family members had to end their hunger strike and travel to the Home Ministry to submit their memorandum. This shift in engagement was also accompanied by increased efforts to hinder the right to peaceful assembly, via the use of barbed wire barricades outside the prison this year and obstruction of family members by security staff from entering the Home Ministry complex. The arrest and questioning under the Protected Areas and Protected Places Act marked an escalation in the use of legal provisions to intimidate activists and civilians exercising their fundamental right to peaceful assembly – going beyond the usual reliance on the PAA.