LGBTIQA+ rights advocates in Malaysia have raised concerns over police raids on gay saunas and the public shaming of people who have been detained.
On Friday police in Kuala Lumpur staged a joint operation with the City Hall and the government’s Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) to conduct a raid on a sauna where they allege same sex activities were taking place. Media were invited along to the raid, and afterwards the identities and places of employment of many of the men arrested were made public.
Over 200 people were arrested at the venue which ad been operating for eight months. While the venue had never advertised itself as a gay venue, homosexual acts are illegal in Malaysia, it had been perceived to be operating as a gay sauna.
Police had been keeping the location under surveillance for several weeks and reportedly found condoms at the location. Just hours later a raid was conducted on another venue in Penang where thirteen men were arrested.
LGBTIQA+ rights activists have said that punitive policing is driving gay communities further underground and deterring them from seeking health services. There has also been objections to the practice of public shaming people who were at the venues.
Legal Dignity, a rights group supporting detainees, warned that such raids had “become a serious access-to-justice crisis”, compounded by the leaking of personal details.
“The leak and viral spread of this sensitive data is a serious breach of privacy and dignity,” it said, warning that exposure “puts detainees and their families at risk of discrimination, extortion, job or housing loss, and long-term stigma”.
Na’im Mokhtar, the country’s religious minister has defended the practice saying the activities allegedly uncovered were “a very serious moral wrongdoing”.
Police unable to prosecute a single detainee
Questions about the motivation of the police action has also been questioned after it was revealed that police were unable to proceed with any prosecutions. The court released everyone who had been detailed because police were unable to prove anyone had been exploited or coerced into “prostitution, or abnormal sexual activity”.
Among the men detained were doctors, deputy public prosecutors and other government officials. The Malaysia education Department has announced it will investigate teachers who were among the detainees and has immediately removed them from their positions.
While all the detainees have been cleared of standard criminal charges 103 of them who are Muslim are still being investigated for sodomy.
The local LGBTIQA+ community moved quickly to support those arrested, with lawyers and other volunteers springing into action, and spending days out the front of the police station where the men were being detained.
It led to rights activist Numan Afifi to joke that Malaysian police had just created the country’s first Pride march.
One of the men detained has given an interview with a local newspaper and given an account that calls into questions the police’s claims about the nature of the venue. He alleges that the media were invited to take photos and video of the men before any investigation had taken place.
“These images were circulated online before any investigation was conducted, causing the public to judge us as if we were involved in illegal sexual activities. This seriously violated our rights,” he said. It was also alleged that police asked men to simulate sexual moaning during the interview process.
The raid comes after police raided an event earlier in the year that turned to be a health outreach program.
