Malaysian rapper Namewee probed over ‘offensive’ Lunar New Year dog video with suggestive sex moves
Namewee has repeatedly been at the centre of controversy. In 2016, he was detained for several days for allegedly insulting Islam over a video partly filmed inside a mosque.
A rapper in Muslim-majority Malaysia is under police investigation for allegedly insulting Islam with a Lunar New Year video that features dancers wearing dog masks and performing suggestive moves.
The video features controversial rapper Wee Meng Chee, known by his stage name Namewee, sitting on a chair in front of a domed building and mimicking barks of canines from around the world.
Several black-clad dancers wearing masks of dogs – an animal considered unclean in Islam – gyrate around him, with two of them mimicking a sex position.
The video, which marks the start of the Year of the Dog currently being celebrated across Asia, generated accusations that it was filmed in front of a mosque in the administrative capital Putrajaya.
National police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun reportedly said a probe had been launched into the artist – who is from the country’s ethnic Chinese minority – for hurting religious feelings and “transmitting offensive communications”.
Namewee, who is reported to be abroad, faces up to a year in jail if found guilty.