Young teenage Muslim girls in Malaysia, wearing hijab, were so excited by popular Korean “boy” band B1A4 that they jumped onstage to hug and kiss (!) some musicians.
They are now being asked to turn themselves in or face arrest. The girls are being accused of having shamed Islam, their race, and their religion with such a display of affection in public. They are viewed as having violated Sharia law by touching members of the opposite sex who are also infidels. Their “crime” was caught on video:
The K-pop band is claiming that it was a staged drama, a “romance parody.”
Nevertheless, JAWI (The Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department) will “apply for arrest warrants should the girls fail to cooperate in the investigation.” JAWI is “investigating the girls for public indecency and outraging Muslims.”
Facebook and Twitter commenters claim that the girls “are ignorant about our religion.”
For all those who still believe that current Muslim-majority countries and Muslim leaders are “just like us” in the West, let me ask this question:
Who can forget the American teenage girls and sometimes young women who swooned over Frank Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead? Black and white footage reveals American girls screaming, sobbing, jumping up and down, tearing at their hair, and sometimes jumping on the stage and having to be “escorted” away? Who can forget similar female fan behavior towards the New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and One Direction?
While many parents and religious leaders might have frowned or despaired of such behavior, the state did not come in to enforce religious law against such Dionysian female foolishness.
Islamists are currently glorifying women who become (or who train) human homicide bombs. They are glorifying women who join ISIS to fight Jihad.
In the summer of 2014, authorities identified four new terror groups in Malaysia, all bent on “creating a ‘super’ Islamic caliphate to rule parts of South-east Asia, including secular Singapore.” The envisioned Caliphate is called the Daulah Islamiah Nusantara and covers Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, southern Thailand and southern Philippines.
Malaysian militants are, as of January, 2015, “borrowing money to join ISIS in the Middle East.” According to the South China Morning Post, as reported in the Christian Times, “59 Malaysians have already left their home country to join ISIS… at least two women have taken out a personal loan to pay for their passage to Syria to join ISIS.”
And yet they are arresting teenagers for a momentary display of public affection?
However, some voices of sanity are also being heard. Former Bersih co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenavasan said that “arrest warrants against the Muslim girls who had hugged K-pop boyband B1A4 will ‘traumatize them… for the rest of their lives.’”
An anonymous voice on YouTube, allegedly a religious teacher, claims, “They were onstage with Allah’s permission…they chose to stand up and Allah permitted them to be onstage.” She pointed out that the girls should be shown love—that they were already shamed and may indeed learn from this experience.