Malaysia seizes Swatch watches over LGBTQ issue

1 min read

Swatch reported on Tuesday that on May 13 and 14, officials carried raids on Swatch stores located in 11 malls, taking 164 watches valued at a total of $14,000.

The Biel/Bienne-based Swiss watchmaker debuted a collection of rainbow-themed clocks to “celebrate the unity and diversity that make our society — and Swatch — so strong.”

Nick Hayek, CEO of Swatch Group, voiced worry over the raids and questioned how a message of ‘peace and love could be damaging’.

In a statement, Hayek stated, “We wonder how the home ministry’s enforcement team would seize the numerous lovely natural rainbows that are appearing thousands of times a year in the sky of Malaysia.

A summons letter filed under the Printing Presses and Publications Act of 1984, as published by the AFP news agency, stated that “22 Swatch watches with LGBT elements” had been seized at one Swatch outlet by officials from Malaysia’s home affairs ministry.

Swatch declared that it intended to restock its supplies of the timepieces and carry on with the sale of them in the nation of Southeast Asia.

The Malaysian LGBTQ rights organisation JEJAKA denounced the raid and claimed it displayed “a deeply unsettling level of intolerance” in a statement shared on Twitter.

Saifuddin Nasution, the home minister, told the Associated Press that he would not comment until he had seen the full report on the incident.

Malaysia, which has a majority of Malay Muslims and is around 60% Muslim, criminalises homosexual behaviour between people of the same sex and forbids them from engaging in gender and sexual manifestations that are at odds with Islamic teachings.

Two lawmakers from the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), the majority party in Malaysia’s parliament, stated on Tuesday that LGBTQ individuals should be considered to be suffering from a mental disease.

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