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Malaysian filmmakers could face 1 year in jail for insulting ‘religious feelings’ in banned movie Mentega Terbang
- Khairi Jailani and Tan Meng Kheng are the first Malaysian creators to face a criminal charge over film content in the country, where rising conservatism is stifling free speech
- Critics of the 104-minute movie called it ‘blasphemous’, saying the pair deserved punishment for ‘insulting Islam’
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Two Malaysian filmmakers could face jail after a Kuala Lumpur court on Wednesday charged them with insulting “religious feelings” over a movie exploring the afterlife, which has never been shown in the country and had already been pulled from Hong Kong streaming platform Viu.
Director Khairi Jailani and producer Tan Meng Kheng are the first Malaysian filmmakers to face a criminal charge over film content in the Muslim-majority country, where creatives say the march of religious conservatism is increasingly smothering cultural output.
The pair earlier pleaded not guilty to the charge of deliberately “wounding the religious feelings of any persons” in their banned film “Mentega Terbang”, which is a play on words in Malay, literally translated as butterfly.
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Under Section 298 of the Penal Code, they face a one-year prison sentence with fines if convicted.
The 104-minute film, which was banned in Malaysia last September, revolves around a young Malay Muslim girl who comes to terms with losing her terminally ill mother through researching what other religions say about life after death.
Accused of promoting apostasy, the film was pulled from streamer Viu after the controversy caused by the Malaysian ban. While multiethnic and multicultural, Islam is Malaysia’s state religion with a legal code and enforcement agencies to preserve orthodoxy.
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