Malaysia seizes Swatch watches over ‘LGBT connotations’

World
By William

Swiss watchmaker says authorities in Muslim-majority country seized 164 LGBTQ pride-themed watches.

Malaysian authorities seized watches released by Swiss company Swatch to celebrate LGBTQ pride, the latest incident to raise concerns about the rights of sexual minorities in the Muslim-majority country.

Swatch said on Tuesday that authorities raided Swatch stores in 11 malls on May 13 and 14, seizing 164 watches with a total value of $14,000.

Based in Biel/Bienne, the Swiss watchmaker 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 raids, questioning how a message of “peace and love could be harmful”.

“We wonder how the Home Office’s enforcement unit will confiscate the many beautiful natural rainbows that appear in Malaysia’s sky a thousand times a year,” Hayek said in a statement.

Malaysian interior ministry officials said “22 Swatch watches with LGBT elements” had been seized from a Switch store, according to a summons issued under the Printing Presses and Publications Act of 1984 and quoted by the news agency. AFP.

Swatch said it planned to replenish its stock of watches and continue to sell them in the Southeast Asian country.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Malaysian LGBTQ rights organization JEJAKA condemned the raid, saying it revealed “a deeply disturbing level of intolerance”.

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 Malaysia’s Muslim majority from engaging in expressions of gender and sexuality that go against Islamic teachings.

On Tuesday, two MPs from the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), the largest 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 the cancellation of an upcoming concert by British rock band Coldplay in a social media post that featured 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 and arrested 20 Muslim men for cross-dressing.

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