The Swiss watchmaker says authorities in the Muslim majority country have seized 164 LGBTQ pride-themed watches.
Malaysian authorities have seized watches released by Swatch company Swatch to celebrate LGBTQ pride, the latest incident to raise concerns about the rights of sexual minorities in the country’s majority Muslim.
Swatch said on Tuesday that authorities conducted raids on Swatch stores in 11 shopping malls on May 13 and 14, seizing 164 watches worth a total of $14,000.
The Swiss watchmaker, based in Biel/Bienne, released its line of brightly colored timepieces inspired by the rainbow flag to “celebrate the unity and diversity that make our society – and Swatch – so strong.”
Swatch Group Chief Executive Nick Hayek expressed concern about the attacks, questioning how a message of “peace and love can be harmful”.
“We wonder how the home ministry’s enforcement unit confiscated the many beautiful natural rainbows that appear a thousand times a year in the Malaysian sky,” Hayek said in a statement.
Officials at Malaysia’s home affairs ministry said “22 Swatch watches with LGBT elements” were confiscated from a Switch outlet, according to a summons notice issued under the Printing Presses and Publications Act of 1984 and cited by the AFP news agency. .
Swatch said it plans to replenish stocks of the watches and continue to sell them in the Southeast Asian country.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Malaysian LGBTQ-rights advocacy group JEJAKA condemned the attack and said it revealed “a very bad level of intolerance”.
JEJAKA condemns the recent takeover of the Swatch Pride Collection in Malaysia and calls for the promotion of diversity and acceptance. Read our official statement here: pic.twitter.com/GQIz8F63ro
— JEJAKA 🏳️🌈 (@jejakaorg) May 22, 2023
Interior Minister Saifuddin Nasution told the Associated Press news agency that he was waiting for a full report on the incident before commenting on the matter.
Malaysia, which is about 60 percent Muslim, criminalizes sexual activity between members of the same sex and prohibits the Malay-Muslim majority from engaging in gender and sexuality expressions that go against the teachings. in Islam.
On Tuesday, two members of parliament from the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), the largest single party in Malaysia’s parliament, said LGBTQ people should be classified as suffering from mental illness.
Earlier this month, a senior PAS official called for an upcoming concert by British rock band Coldplay to be canceled in a social media post featuring a photo of frontman Chris Martin holding a rainbow flag.
In October, religious police raided an LGBTQ-friendly Halloween party in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown, arresting 20 Muslim men for cross-dressing.
