Religious Police Call Time On Malaysian Punks And Skins

August 24, 2003

BruneiDirect.com is reporting that the Islamic department in the capital of the Malaysian state of Kelantan has launched a campaign to rid the area of punk and skinhead culture after deciding they are un-Islamic.

Teenagers who sport Mohican haircuts may find themselves confronted with a pair of clippers and verses from the Koran.

During a recent gathering as part of Malaysia's Independence Day celebrations, a 17-year old youth was detained for looking "excessively punky."

He was reportedly wearing torn clothes and had his head died red and cropped into a Mohican: known in Malaysia as a "Trojan" haircut. He was given a lecture by officials who offered him Koranic verses and told him to abandon his unhealthy lifestyle before shaving his head.

A spokesman for the state's chief minister says that the party is not against all Western styles but that authorities are concerned to prevent any possible gang rivalries from developing.

There have been a number of cases in Malaysia recently where government ministers have criticized council officials for the manner in which they have enforced morality by laws.

Officers in Kuala Lumpur and the northern city of Ipoh were told that they had overstepped the mark after trying to fine couples for holding hands in public.

Two years ago, fans of "black metal" found themselves out of favor with the authorities when the religious affairs committee in the northern state of Kedah proposed to medicate rockers they accused of practicing Satanism, carrying out animal sacrifices and defiling the Koran with drugs used to treat addicts.

Both Kedah and Kelantan are conservative rural areas where Malay Muslims are in a large majority.

Local attitudes towards Western fashion may have as much to do with a certain small-town mentality as religious sensibilities.

In large cities like Kuala Lumpur young people are far freer to express themselves.

Find more on
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).