US President Barack Obama will meet with leaders of Malaysian civil society movements, including Bersih, Islamic Renaissance Front and the Bar Council during his visit to Kuala Lumpur this weekend.

An NGO representative said that some 10 individuals have been invited by the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, by way of email, to a meeting on Sunday, although time and venue were not stated.

"We did not request this but we are happy with the invitation. It shows an acknowledgement of the US president’s need to engage with the civil society in Malaysia," the NGO representative, who did not want to be named, told Malaysiakini .

Other groups invited to meet with Obama include Empower, Sisters in Islam (SIS), Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) and Tenaganita.

This is the first visit by a US president to Malaysia after the last visit by Lyndon B Johnson nearly 50 years ago.

Former Bar Council and Bersih chief Ambiga Sreenevasan, Bersih 2.0 chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah, Bar Council's Christopher Leong and Hasmy Agam were among  the high profile civil society leaders personally invited for the meeting.

While there were no topics specified, one NGO source noted that judging from the chosen NGOs, perhaps the president wanted to find out more about civil liberties and  the views of "moderate" Muslims in Malaysia.

He noted Bar Council's Andrew Khoo had written a commentary piece, published in the Wall Street Journal today, calling on Obama "not to accept fiction or defer to the Malaysian government because of regional security concerns."

"There has been creeping Islamisation and growing tension even among Muslims in the country, the persecution of Shiites for example, and the meeting may be a recognition for the moderates' cause,"  the source said.

Previously, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim had lamented that Obama did not want to meet him during his visit, raising suspicion that the government had attempted to block it.

But Malaysia's ex-premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that he, too, was not asked to meet Obama and that the US president had sovereignty to decide who he wants to see during his short visit.