KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Islamic fundamentalist officials in a Malaysian state are clamping down on pop groups and women performers, calling them immoral and against Muslim rules.
The government in the northeastern state of Kelantan recently ordered officials to more strictly enforce laws passed several years ago that ban pop groups and women performers at hotels and clubs, he said.
Rock music and female performers are "un-Islamic and contribute to moral decadence," Razak Ghani, a senior official with the Kelantan state government, told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The clampdown is the latest move to impose strict Islamic rules in Malaysia by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, the largest opposition party which governs two of Malaysia's 13 states.
The fundamentalists have passed Islamic criminal codes in the states they control that include whipping, amputation and stoning as punishments. The criminal codes have not been implemented because the federal government, which controls the police, has rejected them as unconstitutional.
The fundamentalist-ruled states have enforced other Islamic regulations that do not apply nationally, such as alcohol and gambling bans and separate shop counters for men and women.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government and a non-Muslim opposition party criticized the latest restrictions Thursday, saying they contravene freedom of religion clauses in the constitution.
Tourism Minister Kadir Sheikh Fadzir said the restrictions violate the constitution but did not say whether the government would try to have them lifted.
Betty Chew, vice-chairman of the women's wing of the Democratic Action Party, an ethnic Chinese-based opposition party, said the Islamic party was adopting a "ban here, ban there, ban everywhere policy."
More than two thirds of Malaysia's 23 million population are ethnic Muslim Malays. Most of the rest are ethnic Chinese and Indians who are mostly Christian, Buddhist and Hindu.
Malaysia is governed by secular laws and also has moderate Islamic laws that apply to Muslims.