As if the detainment and ‘rehabilitation’ of punks in Banda Aceh, Indonesia wasn’t worrying enough, Wormrot have told of how they were arrested on New Year’s Day in Malaysia recently.
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The grind kings were bringing in the new year with a show in Kuala Lumpur, but local religious authorities sought to reverse the clock and take them back to the dark ages, arresting them for the most arbitrary of reasons.
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Writing in the band’s Tumblr, manager Azean recounted how the Selangor Islamic Religious Department entered their hotel room and began questioning them. “After several questions and telling us that it is wrong for unmarried Muslim men and women to be in one room, they took our passports and we were taken to the police station to give our statements and call someone to bail us”.
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Azean continues: “Only 5 of us were taken into custody. Arif, Rasyid, Fit, his girlfriend who is Arif’s little sister and myself. Rasyid’s girlfriend was not taken into custody coz she’s not Muslim and Fiaz was from another room. When we got out of the hotel to be escorted into the police lorry which already has some couples who were caught earlier than us, around 30 – 40 more people from JAIS, passerby and maybe some people from the media took pictures of us as though they had busted the most biggest crime for the night. We were taken to the Taman Muda Police Station and had to sit on the floor to wait for the organizer, Emi, to come and bail us out.”
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Thankfully, the organiser turned up, however, Wormrot and the deviant couples would suffer the worst that any fascist organisation has to offer: bureaucracy.
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“At around 4.15am, we were taken to another police station as there was no high ranking officer to do up the reports. Again everyone had to be escorted into the lorry to be driven to Pandan Indah Police Station. However, when we arrived there, we were still held in the lorry as the high ranking staff from JAIS have not arrived. At around 5am they finally arrived.”
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In the end, Wormrot were let off with just a warning, avoiding fines of $950 USD per person.
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“By the time Emi sent us back to our hotel, it was already 5.30am. We were beyond exhausted as we had been awake since 5am the day before, performing and then the hotel drama… Damn son! What a way to celebrate 2012!!”
