I refer to the Malaysiakini report Protesters stop Bar's 'conversion' forum.

On Saturday, I attended two seminars, the second one by default simply because the first one was disrupted by a group of so- called Islam defenders so much so that this first seminar on conversion to Islam was abruptly over at 10am!

Just one hour into the seminar, a few men walked into the Bar Council meeting room and blatantly asked for the seminar to be stopped! After much hassle, arguments, verbal abuse, etc, the Bar Council president was forced to call off the meeting 10 minutes later.

As my lawyer friend and I were walking out from the Bar Council forum, in order to attend another seminar in PJ, we were greeted with shouts and verbal abuse. Among them were ‘balik Cina, masuk Islam’.

Really. It was the first time in my life that someone asked me to balik Cina! The whole atmosphere was so racially/religiously charged that any irrational response from any one of participants would surely have resulted in a fight.

I had to restrain my friend from responding to the racial taunts as we didn’t want to argue with barbarians unless we had a battalion of armed forces to back us up!

The second seminar in PJ by Gavin Menzies was a relief. It showed how powerful the Chinese navy was in conquering the world. Menzies showed us a series of ancient maps and documents to back up his claim that China already knew the world well before Columbus and Magellan sailed much later.

He claimed it was the Chinese visit to Venice in 1434 and the presentation of maps, artistic materials etc which sparked the Renaissance of Europe.

Back to the first seminar, there were Muslim participants as well. In fact, the lawyer for the Federal Territory Islamic Council argued srongly in favour of Islam and gave us the other side of coin.

It would do everyone including Muslims much good if they were to sit down and participate in a rational way instead of shouting disparaging statements outsite a building.

A legally constituted meeting should not have been disrupted by an illegal gathering of a mob.