A Malaysian court ruled that the government should return Swatch Watches seized over their designs celebrating LGBTQ Pride. The Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled on Monday that the country’s Ministry of Home Affairs acted outside the law by seizing without a search warrant 172 rainbow-themed watches, which the watchmaker produced in recognition of Gay Pride Month.
The watches, valued at about $14,000, had been seized in raids conducted in May last year at 11 shopping malls on grounds that the products contained “LGBT elements.”
The decision comes after a lawsuit by Switzerland-based Swatch argued that the idea behind the watches was not to encourage sexual activity but to propagate messages of “peace and love.”
Malaysian Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution graciously accepted the defeat when he told reporters, “We respect the court’s decision and will wait for a written judgment to decide on the next course of action.”
During the raids, the head of Swatch Group, Nick Hayek called the government action “absurd,” saying, “The authorities should also prick. the many beautiful natural rainbows that appear in the sky after a rain shower.”.
Malaysia retains a rigid ban on same-sex sexual activity under its civil code and Islamic law, which controls the lives of the nation’s Malay-Muslim majority.
For instance, in July 2023, the government banned a music festival called Good Vibes, held in Kuala Lumpur, because Matty Healy, the lead vocalist of the UK rock band The 1975, kissed a male bandmate during the performance. Not only that, but in October 2022, religious police raided an LGBTQ-friendly Halloween party in Chinatown and arrested 20 Muslim men for cross-dressing.
