WHAT! MATT HEALY ARRESTED BY M’SIAN AUTHORITIES??! – JUST IMAGINE THE FURORE & UNNECESSARY NEGATIVE ATTENTION! – BERSATU’S HAMZAH SHOWS HOW STUPID & INSINCERE HE IS – DOES HE NOT KNOW THE MEANING OF ‘BALANCED’ & ‘MEASURED’ RESPONSES – MUST EVERYTHING BE EXTREMIST LIKE HIS POLITICAL CLOWN PAL SANUSI, WHOM HE SEEMS WILLING TO DEFEND AT THE EXPENSE OF THE ENTIRE MALAYSIAN ECONOMY – IS HAMZAH, WHO PRACTICALLY DESTROYED THE MM2H PROGRAM, SATISFIED ONLY WHEN HE HAS TURNED MALAYSIA INTO AN EXTREMIST ISLAMIC STATE? – EVEN DUBAI ALLOWED THE 1975 LEAVE THEIR COUNTRY AT 5AM AFTER MATT PULLED A SIMILAR STUNT THERE!
Opposition Leader Hamzah Zainudin questioned why the government did not arrest members of the British band, The 1975 as they did with caretaker Kedah Menteri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor.
He said the police had resorted to arresting Sanusi during the wee hours for something less serious, but the band members were not even detained despite having committed many violations.
“Sanusi ‘buat salah sikit’ (commit a minor offence), they arrested him at 3am.
“But this band, I don’t know if the police had even arrested them. They committed many offences, but they were not even detained.
“This is the kind of government we have today, one that practices double standards, and this is why we do not want them to be in power anymore,” Hamzah said during a ceramah last night.
Hamzah, who is also Bersatu secretary-general, was speaking at the launching of Sungai Burong and Permatang PN election machinery in Tanjong Karang, Selangor.
He was referring to an incident during a festival in Sepang on Friday, which saw The 1975 frontman Matt Healy angrily criticised Malaysia’s laws against LGBT.
The musician also said he made a mistake by coming to a country that is “telling us whom we can have sex with” because he didn’t check when the band made the concert booking in Malaysia.
He was also seen drinking from a bottle believed to contain an alcoholic beverage during the incident, while netizens allege that Healy spat onstage and damaged a camera drone operated by the festival crew.
Hamzah, who is a former home minister, said he had never allowed controversial groups like The 1975 into Malaysia when he was in power.
The government, he added, should have rejected the band’s application in the first place. MKINI
Lawsuit being prepared against The 1975
PETALING JAYA: A group of lawyers is working probono on a class action suit by local artistes and vendors against the British band The 1975.
“We are putting our hearts and minds to improving the first working draft of the class action,” said lawyer Mathew Thomas Philip in a Facebook post yesterday.“If there is any information that you may possess and which may have a bearing on the suit against The 1975, such as the location of their assets, please contact our probono team,” he added.
The 1975’s concert at Good Vibes Festival 2023 on Friday was stopped abruptly after lead singer Matty Healy ranted and then kissed bassist Ross MacDonald on stage, leading to the organiser pulling the plug on the band’s act.
The act has led to a total ban on The 1975 performing in the country, while the organisers were forced to refund tickets after the Communications and Digital Ministry cancelled the rest of the festival that was supposed to end yesterday.
Meanwhile, the group of lawyers is reportedly calling for a townhall meeting with artistes and vendors affected by the concert’s cancellation.
The townhall is tentatively scheduled to be held at 7pm tomorrow at Barrister’s Brew, Sri Hartamas in Kuala Lumpur. ANN
The 1975 have left the country, says S’gor top cop
Sunday, 23 Jul 2023
PETALING JAYA: Members of British band The 1975 have left Malaysia, says Selangor police chief Comm Datuk Hussein Omar Khan.
He said the band left the country on Saturday (July 22) morning.
“In terms of action against the band, there is not much that can be done.
“That said, we will hold the organisers (of the Good VIbes festival) responsible for their actions,” he said when contacted on Sunday (July 23).
It was reported that the band’s frontman Matty Healy appeared to be defiant and showed no remorse for his behaviour on stage.
On Friday (July 21), Healy started ranting on stage about the country’s LGBT laws before kissing bassist Ross MacDonald at the Sepang International Circuit.
Organisers pulled the plug on the band’s performance and the remaining two days of the music festival were cancelled by the Communications and Digital Ministry.
Comm Hussein was quoted saying that three reports were lodged at the KLIA police headquarters on Saturday (July 22) as the incident touched on the sensitivity of Malaysian society and made fun of the country’s laws.
Those involved in the incident have been called up, he added.
He said that investigations were opened under Section 509 and 504 of the Penal Code as well as Section 14 of the Minor Offences Act. ANN
Did Puspal miss, or overlook, serial nastiness of British rocker?
It is absurd The 1975 was allowed to perform here despite the horrible behaviour of its frontman in several countries.
The fiasco involving British pop-rock band, The 1975, has taken the vetting of foreign artistes in Malaysia to new heights of absurdity.
Despite the bizarre on-stage meltdown by the group’s provocative frontman Matt Healy in several countries, they were allowed to perform here.
At the Good Vibes music festival in Sepang on Friday, Healy caused a furore when he locked lips onstage with his bandmate and launched a tirade against Malaysia’s anti-LGBTQ laws.
His horrible behaviour also included smoking and drinking alcohol, spitting on the stage, as well as stomping on a drone.
Puspal, a body under the communications and digital ministry, is now attempting to distance itself from the approval it had given to the group.
It has lodged a police report against the band and the organisers, Future Sound Asia, over their negligence and failure to comply with the terms set by the government.
Communications and digital minister Fahmi Fadzil penalised fans by cancelling the three-day event, and food vendors who rented space at the venue suffered losses.
So, is Puspal, the authority which had actually given credibility to Healy and his band, off the hook?
For Puspal to say Healy’s action was an insult that disregarded the country’s laws goes back straight to the agency’s failure to protect sensitivities.
The 1975’s application was rejected on June 22, but was approved weeks later after the organiser vouched for the band in writing that there will be full compliance of the rules.
It is imperative that Puspal come clean on whether they knew anything at all about Healy’s past nastiness or whether the organiser had made a full disclosure.
Healy’s decadent foreign influence over the years was not just confined to the 2019 concert in Dubai, where he ventured into the crowd and kissed a male fan on the lips in protest of the strident anti-LGBTQ laws there.
He later told British media he did not regret his act of defiance, and that he and the rest of the band fled Dubai at five in the morning.
Dubai police had planned to arrest him as homosexuality is illegal in the United Arab Emirates, but in Malaysia, where it is also a crime, police allowed him to leave the country a free man.
Puspal should have avoided the risk of Healy repeating his homosexual stunt and paid cognisance to the fact that he was not remorseful.
Jerks like Healy who aren’t properly punished will be emboldened to break the law again.
Over the years, Healy has demonstrated a knack for stirring the hornet’s nest with his blunt remarks about a country’s laws and its people, and his unprofessional conduct.
Examples are plentiful, such as the time in Las Vegas he pulled a female fan on stage and planted a kiss on her mouth. The next day he kissed a male fan during a show in San Diego.
In Denmark, he knelt in front of a security guard and kissed him on the lips, and on another occasion, he sucked a girl’s thumb.
Examples of his kissing, while usually drunk, are plentiful, so there was always the risk that this incorrigible kisser would do the same here.
Healy has been open about his experiences with substance misuse, and once told his bandmates, “you need to respect my drug addiction”. Those words alone raise red flags.
In 2019, he caused an uproar in South Korea when he posted a mirror selfie of himself stepping on the Korean flag that fans gave him at his concert.
We don’t want immoral values for our children, whether Muslim or not, and in the case of The 1975, the authorities have failed us.
The government’s move to ban The 1975 from performing in Malaysia has come too late, and the announcement sounds like a title of the band’s album, “Being Funny in a Foreign Language.” FMT
MKINI / ANN / FREE MALAYSIA TODAY
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