Malaysia issues ‘kill switch’ order to cut controversial concerts

Measure to ensure foreign artists ‘adhere to the local culture’ follows incident at gig by the 1975 in Kuala Lumpur

Concert organisers in Malaysia must now have a “kill switch” to cut short performances that break official guidelines, a minister has said.

The measure follows the controversy surrounding a performance in Kuala Lumpur by the 1975, whose frontman Matty Healy criticised Malaysia’s homophobic laws in a profanity-laden speech and kissed a male bandmate on stage. The incident in July led to the cancellation of the weekend festival at which the band was performing.

The deputy communications and digital minister, Teo Nie Ching, told the parliament’s lower house that concert organisers must have “a kill switch that will cut off electricity during any performance if there is any unwanted incident”.

“We hope that with stricter guidelines, foreign artists can adhere to the local culture,” she said, in comments reported by local media.

Future Sounds Asia, the organiser of the Good Vibes festival at which Healy was performing, did not respond immediately to a request for comment, but the company told the Singaporean broadcaster Channel News Asia this week that it had not seen a decline in interest from foreign artists wanting to perform in Malaysia.

“All foreign artists have been performing in the country with the understanding that they need to adhere to the local performance regulations. After the incident [involving Healy], artists are even more aware of this,” it said, adding that it was working on a system for a kill switch.

Future Sounds Asia has previously said it was pursuing a claim against the band, calling on them to acknowledge liability and compensate for the damages incurred as a result of the festival being cancelled. It said Healy’s actions “tarnished” the festival’s reputation and “intentionally contravened the agreement [the band] had with FSA”.

Some feared the episode would make it harder for foreign artists to visit Malaysia, and that it risked exacerbating hostilities facing the LGBTQ+ community, with activists arguing that, had Healy wanted to show solidarity, he should have consulted local LGBTQ+ people first.

In May, a member of Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), a religious party that supports a strict interpretation of Islamic law, called for the cancellation of Coldplay’s concert in November, suggesting this would encourage “a culture of hedonism and perversion”. The calls were made on social media, and posted alongside an image of the band’s singer, Chris Martin, holding a rainbow flag.

Martin responded in an interview with Malaysian media, saying: “Everybody is welcome to our show, we love all people, all kinds of people, all religions.” The Coldplay show is scheduled for 22 November.

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