I find it interesting that Paul Warren thought that the "tissue paper" incident had anything to do with "pollution from the point of view of religion" ('Fears of religious 'pollution'', Nov 2). Such short-sightedness must not be allowed in a multicultural country such as Malaysia.

Firstly, I would like to point the fact that in Islam, sins cannot be transferred from person to person (least of all, by contact). What happened to M Moganasundaram is nothing special - I am sure something similar has already happened to most of you. It comes from a basic tenet in Islam which says that a person must not touch directly another person of different sex. I find it disconcerting that a so-called "educated" Malaysian ignores this fact. Perhaps Warren has spent too much time overseas?

Or perhaps he was guided by the same motivation that moves PAS to use religious issues in order to score points against the government? (Well, I'm just being ironic actually...) Either way, I suggest that he tries to understand his fellow citizens before criticising them.

In France, men and women kiss each others cheek when greeting - is it something that a traditional Chinese or Indian would allow their teenager children to do? Most probably not! When refused, some Frenchmen would act exactly the way Warren did - criticising without really trying to understand why.

In a country such as ours, where a person is given the right to practice his/her own moral codes, the least that we can do is to try to understand people and avoid prejudice.