Islamic Malaysia’s Sharia Police Makes Mass Arrests at Giant LGBT Halloween Party

Malaysia’s Islamic religious police on Saturday night raided a large Halloween party in Kuala Lumpur attended by LGBT activists, arresting 18 of the thousand or so participants for offenses against Muslim sharia law including cross-dressing and indecent behavior.

Activist Numan Afifi said a platoon of 40 “religious police,” backed up by regular police officers, marched into the club where the party was held and ordered a halt to music and dancing. They then separated the partygoers into Muslim and non-Muslim groups, arrested some of the Muslims for violating sharia law, and took them to the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Department for questioning. The detainees were released later in the evening, but are expected to return to answer more questions. 

Malaysia, which is about 60 percent Muslim, has a “dual track” justice system in which the “morality police” can arrest Muslim citizens for violating Islamic law. Each citizen’s religion is clearly indicated on their state identity card. The religious police have a troubling history of overzealous prosecution and false accusations.

Malaysia’s Islamic legal code stipulates that “any male person who in any public place wears women’s attire and poses as a woman for immoral purposes, can be charged with an offense and shall on conviction be liable to a fine up to RM1,000 (about $211 U.S.) or to imprisonment for a term not more than a year, or both.”

Afifi called the experience “traumatizing and harrowing,” an example of “outrageous state oppression.”

“They isolated the Muslim participants, and identified anyone that did not dress according to the gender that they thought them to be – but of course it’s Halloween, people were dressing in costumes, so not all of them were cross-dressing,” he said.

“These targeted persecution against the LGBTQ+ community has the potential to trigger hate crimes,” opposition lawmaker Charles Santiago said in response to the Halloween party raid.

“I urge authorities to cease hunting them down as if they are criminals,” Santiago said. 

“We have people who are still reeling from job losses; the ringgit is weak; the economy needs resuscitation. But you use resources to go after people who were at a Halloween party?” he asked incredulously.

“These people are not criminals,” argued human rights lawyer Siti Kassim. “The oppression and discrimination against LGBT people must end immediately.”