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Southeast Asia
Malaysia club raid sparks row
2005-02-18
New allegations have surfaced about misconduct by Malaysia's religious police during a raid on a top Kuala Lumpur nightclub last month. More than 100 plainclothes officers from the Federal Territories Islamic Department (JAWI) detained young Muslims at the Zouk nightclub. Female detainees complained of sexual harassment by officers and the incident has led to a heated debate about the department's future. Eyewitnesses have now told the BBC that officers assaulted and severely beat members of the club's staff. The sources also said that non-Muslim patrons, including tourists, who were outside the officers' jurisdiction, also reported being threatened with violence. "Up to 150 of them came in," one witness said. "They didn't identify themselves, they didn't show any ID cards. They just forced their way in and started pushing people around."
"Badges? Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"
In the days after the raid it emerged that dozens of young women were held for up to 10 hours without access to a toilet, long after male detainees had been released. A number of women said religious officers ordered them to pose in their nightclub outfits while others were asked lewd questions about their genitalia. JAWI would neither confirm nor deny the allegations. The incident prompted Malaysia's cabinet to discuss the future of the religious police.
Getting rid of them would be a big step
Cabinet minister and former law minister Rais Yatim said after the meeting that he believed crime should be a matter for the police and morality for the family.
Amen
However, his colleague Abdullah Mohamed Zin, Minister for Islamic affairs, defended the officers and maintained that the raid was carried out according to procedures. The incident has sparked a sometimes venomous debate among Malaysia's Muslims, reflected in comments posted on JAWI's website. Many correspondents, including one signing himself Abdullah were supportive. "I would like to take this opportunity to applaud the recent raids by JAWI against the cesspools of vice and debauchery in Kuala Lumpur. In this era of permissiveness and promiscuity, there is a need for stern action to roll back the decay of morality in society," he said. Others, including SI Azhar, were angered by the officers' alleged behaviour. "If the reports were true, the officers [who] committed those acts were no better than hypocrites, trying to uphold good values of Islam but themselves never follow[ing] it. You have ashamed us fellow Malays and Muslims. Just tell me, how can we encourage non-Muslims to embrace Islam with this kind of attitude?!"
Posted by:Steve

#8  Ptah: I was careful to distinguish between the underdeveloped and developed world. In past, it has been noted that when any given people reach an economic plateau, all of a sudden, their rate of reproduction becomes "maintenance", from 1.9 to 2.5 children per family, rather than "increase" of an average of 3 or more. However, some societies, like western Europe or Japan, that should be at maintenance level are instead in "decline", sometimes radically. Economics cannot be blamed for this, instead social factors come into play. These social factors, like religion, may either inhibit or increase reproduction. In the US, it has been noted that the "anti-community", suburbia, based on the Frank Lloyd Wright ranch house, often results in families living in isolation from their neighbors. This is the low-density version of apartment dwellers who have no idea who lives on their same floor. But in either case, lack of socialization results in fewer healthy relationships over time. Japan now has several million "shut-ins", young people who never leave their family home, often living for years in their room. They have no place to go to meet, socialize, and mate. Or any place that can lead to a relationship where they will reproduce. Their society, and western Europes, and to a great extent the US, are creating more and more social inhibitions to having children. Much of the problem is based in the government asserting that it has a responsibility to micro-manage the raising of children. In this case, a religion may act as a shield to protect a family from government intrusion, or to insist that what government and the culture hold up as the model of a good family is not a good example. The bottom line to all of this, is that those factors that inhibit reproduction are only useful in places with widespread poverty, like Malaysia, whose population will stabilize once it has reached an economic threshold. But in nations with declining populations, inhibitions must be eliminated, and reproduction actively encouraged.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-02-18 4:56:05 PM  

#7  Rape has been used as a means of punishment by Muslim religious police since Islam began. That's perverse, to say the least. Regards.
Posted by: anti-moby   2005-02-18 4:01:18 PM  

#6  As to religion, in the developed world, it, too, has embraced responsibility too much.

I disagree vigorously: I would say that the MAIN reason that Islamist can recruit grunts is the reluctance of Arab and Mulsim Society to ACCEPT and EMBRACE responsiblity. The main problem in the inner city is single motherhood and the drone males living off of multiple welfare moms while eschewing responsiblity for their offspring.

And don't conflate what used to be Christian Europe with the post-modern, post Christian Eurabia of today. Birth rates are just fine in the United States (accused of being the second most religious nation in the world, right after Ireland), as well as south of the Equator. Birth rates are dropping like a rock in post-communist/still-atheist Russia.

The best aphrodisiac known to man that encourages great demographics is a composition of equal parts of Hope and Optimism, both of which Americans have in spades. It even afflicts illegal Latinos here in the US on the dole. Nobody will have kids if they don't believe they can make those kids better off than they are. Anything else is madness. I and my wife chose to have TWO, because we were SURE we could do that with TWO, while it was doubtful we could do it with THREE, and pretty sure we couldn't do it with FOUR. And to have only ONE would have been selfish, since we had capacity to spare to handle another. It would have been easy to throw up our hands and settle for one after we lost our daughter at 7 months pregnancy (and I wanted a girl), but we trooped on and had #2 son and don't regret it.

Oh, and to be honest: If I could have been GUARANTEED to have a girl on the fourth try, I WOULD have done it. And there always was a chance for twins on tries 2 and 3, but we had faith that if God gave us twins, then HE had faith in US that we could handle it.

Optimally, children should be raised by a married couple; but practically, any way you can get children is a good way.

Children are indeed a good in themselves (which is why I oppose abortion). However, as the child victim of a divorce in the early 60's, and raising two boys today, Married couple is the best. Nevertheless, I have unalloyed admiration for people like Sherri, who are single mothers and continue to troop on. I have LITERALLY been there and been done to.
Posted by: Ptah   2005-02-18 10:51:25 AM  

#5  So where does the funding come from for the Federal Territories Islamic Department? And why aren't they harrassing customers of the very large child-prostitute rings that are there? We need another tsunami.
Posted by: shellback   2005-02-18 10:46:34 AM  

#4  Ptah: as an aside, there *is* a need for this sort of clubbing mischief in the developed world. That is, there is a dearth of places for the young to meet and, basically, get in trouble. Trouble as in reproduction. Which is causing a problem with demographics. As developed societies embrace responsibility too much, the birth rate drops like a rock. Marriage, up until the last century, was a bawdy affair, a fertility ritual rather than a solemn spiritual affair, designed to tittilate and stimulate the young couple into making babies, rather than to worry about keeping up appearances and taking responsibility for raising a proper family living at a proper level of economic prosperity and materialism. As to religion, in the developed world, it, too, has embraced responsibility too much. In past, as long as the couple and their children remained faithful, sin and reproduction within marriage had no connection. In fact, it was the duty of every couple that could to make as many children as they could. But now, most religious leaders pound the drum for couples to have fewer children, and to "raise them better." This is back-firing in a terrible way. There is no condemnation of bastardy in religion: in many times and places no woman would be married until she was pregnant--no reason to marry her otherwise. But "waiting until marriage" is a recipe for reproductive disaster. The couple become focused on getting their lives not only started, but comfortable. By the time they get around to having children, they have lost years of reproductive life. Last but not least, religion has long its willingness to support reproduction. Parents need to be encouraged at least, and even mildly coerced, to take on the additional burden. The Mormons are one of the few that still lean on couples to reproduce, and the difference can be seen in their demographics compared to Catholic and Protestant demographics. As far as mixing alcohol and sex goes, there is a saying that "Without alcohol, the human species would have died out long ago." Optimally, children should be raised by a married couple; but practically, any way you can get children is a good way. Every other thing that religion holds dear depends on it.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-02-18 9:53:20 AM  

#3  Abdullah Mohamed Zin, Minister for Islamic affairs, defended the officers and maintained that the raid was carried out according to procedures.

Wonder what kind of "normal procedures" he's talking about. Why doesn't a western journalist's interest ever get raised about THIS kind of event?

A number of women said religious officers ordered them to pose in their nightclub outfits while others were asked lewd questions about their genitalia.
Posted by: Jules 187   2005-02-18 9:32:48 AM  

#2  I totally agree with you Anonymoose.

I'm Christian, I have personal problems with bars and clubs like this, and would personally discourage anyone patronizing them, but I draw the line THERE. If the government doesn't have the guts to shut the bar down, then leave them alone and let the people who want those services to enjoy them.

Let every male who visits this and other similar establishments agree to bring a lead pipe and ski mask along with his honeybun, and promise to USE the thing on the head of any damn "religious" policeman who doesn't show a badge or a warrant to the owner/manager upon demand.

I recommend, after flattening them out on the floor, to set their feet up on a chair and having the portliest patron there jump off of another chair onto their kneecaps.

Hell, I'd actually hang out at such a place out of hope of participating. Just don't razz me about my diet sprite and sitting in a corner: I'll be the designated driver.
Posted by: Ptah   2005-02-18 9:21:38 AM  

#1  Brownshirts of all types, and indeed, these are brownshirts, cannot be reasoned with. They are, in essense, cowards and bullies. Their motivation for being bullies is that they *like* to be bullies, nothing more complex, so any excuse will do. But also being cowards means that they hate it when someone stands up to them. In this case, had even a small contigent of club bouncers, in an organized and prepared way, started to beat seven bells out of these bullies, the rest would have fleed in terror and never returned. Had the crowd as a whole set upon them, they would have quit their hobby entirely and gone into hiding.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-02-18 9:08:04 AM  

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