The organisers of a recent food and sales expo in Kelantan did not expect their event to make national headlines. Yet in early 2026, they were fined by local authorities after officials ruled that there had been “uncontrolled mingling” between men and women, a breach of the Malaysian state’s morality guidelines. The incident, widely reported and debated across the country, neatly captures how Kelantan governs public life: not through abstract debates about rights, but through daily enforcement of adab (proper conduct), akhlak (morals), and visible gender separation. For supporters, this is principled Islamic governance. For critics, it is a cautionary tale about the cost of moral policing.
Kelantan, on Malaysia’s northeastern coast, has long been governed by the Islamist party Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), which today rules the state under the Perikatan Nasional coalition. PAS leaders describe Kelantan as a model of pentadbiran Islam (Islamic administration), where law and policy are guided by religious values rather than secular liberalism. This vision has shaped state policies for decades, particularly in relation to women, gender relations, sexuality, and public morality.
For women, the state’s approach is framed less around equality and more around protection and propriety. Local councils have repeatedly enforced dress codes requiring “modest attire,” especially for women traders, market vendors, and service workers. Campaigns such as Operasi Gempur Aurat have targeted women’s clothing, with officials invoking aurat (parts of the body that should be covered) as a matter of public order. Although authorities insist these rules apply only to Muslims, past enforcement actions against non-Muslim women—later reversed after national backlash—have reinforced perceptions that Kelantan’s moral framework spills across religious boundaries.
Gender equality, in the rights-based sense promoted by federal agencies and international conventions, is not a central policy language in Kelantan. State leaders often argue that Islam already provides keadilan (justice) between men and women, but with “different roles.” Critics counter that this translates into restrictions that fall disproportionately on women: limits on public performances, heightened scrutiny of women’s behaviour, and moral enforcement that rarely targets men with the same intensity. Gender mixing itself is treated as a potential moral risk. From segregated seating at entertainment events to fines over mixed crowds at expos, separation is seen as prevention rather than punishment.
Nowhere is Kelantan’s stance clearer than on sexuality and LGBTQ issues. PAS leaders have consistently framed same-sex relationships and gender non-conformity as maksiat (immoral acts) that threaten social order. Kelantan’s Syariah criminal enactments have historically criminalised behaviours such as liwat (sodomy), musahaqah (sexual relations between women), and cross-dressing. Although a landmark 2024 Federal Court ruling struck down several Kelantan Syariah provisions for overlapping with federal criminal law, state leaders responded not with retreat but with defiance, vowing to strengthen other aspects of Syariah enforcement still within state jurisdiction. For LGBTQ Malaysians, Kelantan remains one of the most openly hostile environments in the country.
Public morality in Kelantan extends beyond sexuality to entertainment, culture, and everyday social life. Traditional arts such as Mak Yong were restricted for years on religious grounds, with only tightly controlled revivals permitted. Concerts, festivals, and exhibitions are routinely subject to licensing conditions that regulate behaviour, attire, and gender interaction. Supporters see this as preserving budaya Islam (Islamic culture) from what they describe as Western moral decay. Detractors argue it narrows cultural expression and drives young people to neighbouring states for leisure and work.
Religious liberty and minority rights sit uneasily within this framework. Kelantan is overwhelmingly Malay-Muslim, but it is also home to Chinese, Thai Buddhist, and Indigenous communities. Officially, non-Muslims are free to practise their religions, yet controversies over enforcement actions, alcohol sales, and public conduct suggest that minority practices are tolerated rather than fully protected. Critics note that morality laws, even when formally aimed at Muslims, shape public space in ways that affect everyone, creating what some lawyers describe as a “de facto Islamisation” of civic life.
PAS leaders reject accusations of authoritarianism, insisting that Kelantan’s voters repeatedly endorse this moral vision at the ballot box. They frame criticism as urban, elitist, or disconnected from rural Malay values of malu (modesty) and communal discipline. Yet federal court interventions and recurring national debates reveal an unresolved tension between state-level religious governance and Malaysia’s constitutional guarantees of equality and personal liberty.
The fine imposed on expo organisers for allowing men and women to mingle may seem minor in isolation, but it symbolises something larger. In Kelantan, morality is not merely preached; it is administered, inspected, and fined. For supporters, this is proof that Islamic governance works. For others, it raises a harder question: how far can a state go in enforcing virtue before it begins to erode the very diversity and freedoms that define Malaysia as a whole?
I am not going to Kelantan. Not for a conference, not for a festival, not even for “cultural curiosity.” Life is short, my passport has stamps to earn, and I have zero interest in spending my money in a place where my body, my clothes, my laughter, and my proximity to other human beings are treated as public risks to be managed.
Let’s be clear: this is not about faith. I have worked with Muslim feminists, queer Muslims, and religious scholars across Asia who fight—often bravely—for dignity, consent, and justice from within Islam. Kelantan is not that conversation. Kelantan is about control dressed up as virtue. It is about men in authority deciding that the problem with society is women existing too freely in public, or men and women standing too close to each other at a food expo, or queer people daring to be visible at all.
When an event can be fined because adults “mingled” without sufficient supervision, that’s not morality. That’s choreography. That’s social engineering. That’s a worldview where human interaction is suspicious by default, and pleasure—be it music, performance, flirtation, or simple joy—is something to be licensed, segregated, and watched.
As a woman, I am supposed to feel “protected” by this system. Forgive me if I don’t feel grateful. I have spent too many years watching “protection” turn into surveillance, “respect” turn into obedience, and “values” turn into fines, shame, and fear. I know how this script works. First they tell you how to dress. Then they tell you where to sit. Then they tell you who you can love. And finally, they tell you that if you feel uncomfortable, it’s your own moral failure.
And let’s talk about minorities. Kelantan may say its rules are for Muslims only, but public space doesn’t come with religious zoning. When morality is enforced on the street, at markets, at events, everyone feels it. Non-Muslims, ethnic minorities, young people, artists, queer folks—they all learn the same lesson: keep your head down, don’t stand out, don’t attract attention. That is not harmony. That is quiet coercion.
So no, I’m not going. Not because I hate Kelantan, but because I refuse to normalise a place where freedom is treated as contamination. I travel to be curious, to connect, to argue, to flirt, to eat loudly, to laugh in public, to sit next to whoever I want. A state that fines human closeness has nothing to offer me—except a very clear warning sign.
Spicy Auntie reads those signs. And she walks the other way.