Dusk has fallen and the party is just beginning for 29-year-old Asyikin, one of the many young Malay Muslims who hang out in Kuala Lumpur’s vibrant Bukit Bintang nightlife district.
A morality crackdown has seen Malaysian Islamic authorities hand out caning and jail sentences for illicit drinking and sex, and launching raids on homes and clubs in the glare of media flashlights.
But for Asyikin, a petite and attractive business executive dressed in a knee-length skirt and strappy high heels, the campaign hasn’t dampened her party mood.
PHOTO: AFP
“I couldn’t care less, I’m partying. Religion to me is a personal thing,” she says as she sips a glass of whisky and greets other regulars at the bars and restaurants that line the narrow streets.
Malays, who make up 60 percent of the population, are forbidden to have sex out of wedlock or drink alcohol under the Shariah legal system, which runs in parallel to the civil courts.
In an unprecedented case that grabbed world headlines last year, Muslim model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 33, was sentenced to six lashes of the cane for drinking beer.
Kartika’s sentence was commuted to community service after an uproar from rights groups, but three other women were quietly caned under Islamic laws in February for having sex out of wedlock.
Despite the highly publicized cases, every weekend Kuala Lumpur’s top clubs are packed with fashionably dressed youngsters, including Muslim Malays — many offspring of the nation’s elite — socializing and drinking openly.
“I’m a bit more wary after all these cases, but it doesn’t really affect my mood to go out and party,” says Muaz Omar, a civil servant who goes to pubs with friends to watch live band performances.
“People who drink still do go out because even private parties at home are subjected to raids, there is no longer a safe haven,” says the 35-year-old, who adds that he does not drink himself.
“The religious authorities should not be a moral police. In the religion, if it’s a private matter, then it should be a private thing. There must be a rethinking of the way they act,” he says.
The crackdown has fuelled debate over rising “Islamization” of the nation, and rights groups have urged religious authorities to stop acting as morality police.
“We don’t agree with the way they go on, Islam is not about snooping around catching people committing sin,” says Ratna Osman, legal manager from leading civil society group Sisters In Islam.
Ratna blasted the raids as a form of rights violation and an intrusion into people’s privacy.
“Unless that person is a drunkard and started going around committing crime or causing accidents, then yes, you can punish them because they endanger people and their own life,” she says. “But if the person commits a sin in a private domain then it is between him and God. If as a Muslim you feel compelled to tell him, it should be done in a compassionate way or to educate them.”
Religious authorities defend their actions, saying they are merely carrying out their duty to ensure fellow Muslims stay away from sin.
“We don’t accept any behavior that is not condoned by Islam,” says Che Mat Che Ali, the head of the Islamic affairs department in Kuala Lumpur.
“Drinking is a big sin. If you are drunk, you are not in the right state of mind, you yourself will suffer and others may suffer too,” he says.
“It’s not just something between the person and God; we have a duty to advise them,” he says.
The department has rounded up nearly 500 individuals in Kuala Lumpur so far this year for offenses including drinking and khalwat, or “close proximity,” which bars Muslims from being alone with a member of the opposite sex.
But many Malays are unmoved by the ideological debate.
“If you ask me whether I am afraid to hang out with my friends like this after all these cases, the answer is no,” says Asyikin, who like many of Malaysia’s most privileged youngsters went to university abroad — in Britain.
“It’s a choice of lifestyle. Some people, they really follow the book [religious teachings] and for some, you are born a Muslim, you can’t get out of it,” she says as she clinks glasses with a friend.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS