Wormot Arrested: Grindcore Band Detained by Religious Authorities in Malaysia

According to a posting on their Tumblr page today, Singapore grindcore outfit Wormrot was arrested in Malaysia on New Year's Day.

According to Wormrot, the band was hanging out in a local hotel in Kuala Lumpur when the officers of the Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (the Islamic religious department) barged into their room.

The band's manager writes, "After several questions and telling us that it is wrong for unmarried Muslim men and women to be in one room, they took our passports and we were taken to the police station to give our statements and call someone to bail us.

"Five of us were taken into custody. Arif [vocals], Rasyid [guitars], Fit [drums], his girlfriend, who is Arif's little sister and myself. Rasyid's girlfriend was not taken into custody 'cause she's not Muslim and Fiaz [Asilent bassist, with them at the time] was from another room."

"When we got out of the hotel to be escorted into the police lorry, which already has some couples who were caught earlier than us, around 30-40 more people from JAIS, passerby and maybe some people from the media took pictures of us as though they had busted the most biggest crime for the night. We were taken to the Taman Muda police station and had to sit on the floor to wait for the organizer, Emi, to come and bail us out. Emi arrived at 4 a.m. and he had talked to one of the JAIS staff. At around 4:15 a.m., we were taken to another police station as there was no high-ranking officer to do up the reports. Again everyone had to be escorted into the lorry to be driven to Pandan Indah police station. However, when we arrived there, we were still held in the lorry as the high-ranking staff from JAIS have not arrived. At around 5 a.m., when they finally arrived, we thought that we will be taken into the police station for our statements. But... in the end... we were let off with just a warning. We were nearly fined $3000 MYR ($950 USD) per person if Emi did not call his lawyer up and we being Singaporeans. Plus we weren't doing any sexual intercourse when they entered our room.

Read the rest of the account at Wormrot's Tumblr page.

Wormrot formed in Singapore in 2007 and have released two albums on Earache Records. In 2011 the grindcore favorites issued an EP entitled 'Noise.'