Syed Hamid Albar explains why he and other home ministers before him are like candles in this second of a three-part interview with Malaysiakini.

Malaysiakini: How do you ban an organisation (Hindraf) which is not registered?

Syed Hamid Albar: I think a lot of people are also perplexed because they don’t understand the law. If you look at the Societies Act, there are two types of societies that are described in the Act.

One is ‘registered society’ - that means you are lawfully registered. The other one is also called ‘society’ and it is defined as a society that has a body and has a resemblance of a registered society with committee members, with addresses and people holding positions.

(For) a registered society, we can deregister. In the case of a society which acts as a society even though it is not registered, we have to declare it unlawful. It is the same with al-Arqam. Arqam is also not a registered society, so it was declared unlawful.