Dennis Ignatius
~ Provoking discussion, dissent & debate on politics, diplomacy, human rights & civil society.
Moral Policing in Malaysia: Why The Chow Kit Raid Should Concern Us All
09TuesdayDec 2025
Posted in Human rights, justice
Tags
Chow Kit Wellness Centre, Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Religious Affairs, police raid
[1] The joint police-religious affairs department raid on a wellness centre in Chow Kit made headlines all over the world. Some 208 people from various walks of life were arrested.
[2] According to news reports, those detained were investigated under Sections 377 (which criminalises “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and includes homosexual acts) and 372 (which covers prostitution and other unlawful/immoral activity) of the Penal Code.
[3] Significantly, all those detained in the raid were subsequently freed. The police explained that “under current laws, offences involving exploitation, prostitution or unnatural sex acts require a victim… since none of those detained claimed to be victims, the case against them could not proceed.”[1] In other words, over 200 people were harassed, humiliated and hauled off to detention without there being any real evidence that a crime had been committed!
[4] If that was not bad enough, a video of the raid quickly went viral, exposing the identities of some of those detained. They were shamed and humiliated. Lives and livelihoods were upended. Government servants caught up in the raid are now facing disciplinary action.[2] Others are living in trepidation, worried of being recognized.[3] It’s hard to image the terrible trauma that has been visited upon them. Although they were not charged with any crime, they now have to live with the presumption that they were engaged in “immoral activities”.
[5] The minister for religions affairs defended the raid and urged Malaysians not to “take lightly the issue of moral decay… which can undermine the nation’s dignity”. He added that the government aims to “to build a progressive Malaysia with strong values and high moral standards.”[4]
[6] The hypocrisy of the religious establishment is, as always, stunning. They are able to zero in on what’s goes on in an obscure wellness centre in Chow Kit but don’t seem to notice the things that are really destroying the moral fibre of our nation – corruption and the abuse of power. They get worked up by what goes on in a men’s club but not the sexual abuse of minors in institutions under their care.
[7] Astonishingly, in the wake of the disastrous raid, there have been calls to broaden the reach of Section 377 even further. One MP is demanding that “intent” be criminalized as well[5] while others complain that “existing gaps, particularly relating to consent, are preventing authorities from prosecuting cases involving acts against the order of nature.”[6]
[8] One would have thought that the government had better things to do than entertain such asinine ideas; but Madani is all about appeasing the mullahs. No surprise then that the Home Minister immediately promised to “review existing legal provisions on the enforcement of deviant activities”.[7]
[9] Media coverage of the event was not helpful either. They joined the rush to judgement with sensational and misleading headlines like “Surgeon, DPP among 201 held at all-men sex den”[8] and “Caught with their pants down: Prosecutor, surgeon among 201 detained at ‘men only’ vice raid”.[9] It was not journalism; it was a smear job.
[10] The Chow Kit raid is another warning sign that we are increasingly morphing into a Taliban-style state, one in which a narrow-minded, intolerant, religious establishment is taking it upon itself to determine our moral standards, invade our privacy and trample underfoot our rights as citizens. Moral policing ought to have no place in a nation like ours. That is why we need to see what happened in Chow Kit for what it is – a very real threat to our way of life as a democratic, secular, multicultural nation.
[Dennis Ignatius | Kuala Lumpur | 9 December 2025
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