IRC-Galleria

"Black Metal" culture banned in Malaysia

The Malaysian government is set to ban the country's "black metal" subculture after an Islamic council has declared it to be totally against the syariat, or Islamic principles. The government of Malaysia is now amending the law to allow government departments to act against the "black metal" culture.

There has been a lot of publicity in Malaysia about "black metal" (which often referred to any loud music listened to by youths in black T-shirts), connecting it to Satanism, apostasy and Judaism, and accusing followers of the subculture of doing everything from burning the Koran to drinking one's own blood mixed with goat blood, and claiming that concerts were also sex orgies and/or Satanic rituals. Much of the publicity came from tabloid newspapers which, other than being written in Malay, look uncannily similar to their Australian or British equivalents. Conservative Islamic clerics have been fighting against the "black metal" trend and have tried to have the subculture banned before, though seemingly without success; however, they did succeed in imposing requirements on touring bands such as requiring them to submit videotapes of performances to the government for approval and to wear "modest attire".

Source: http://www.rocknerd.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/30/1756215&mode=thread&tid=19