Syariah criminal enactments
State Syariah criminal offences enactments
State law
What this does to artists
Each state has its own Syariah criminal offences enactment, applying to Muslims, and these reach performance, dress, conduct and content. For Muslim artists they operate in parallel with everything else on this page, and a work cleared federally can still be actionable in a state Syariah court.
Not federal legislation and not on the AGC portal. Jurisdictional limits are set by the Ninth Schedule and by the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 (Act 355).
What to read first
Section numbers read out of the AGC text itself
This page is published by ALIM (Art × Law Initiative Malaysia) as general legal information for Malaysia’s creative communities. It is not legal advice. It does not take your circumstances into account, and reading it does not create a solicitor-client relationship with ALIM or with anyone associated with it.
The law changes. Each Act reproduced here is the Attorney General’s Chambers’ consolidated reprint and carries the date it was consolidated to; amendments made after that date do not appear in the text, and the authoritative version of any Malaysian law is the one published in the Federal Gazette. Subsidiary legislation, state enactments and local authority by-laws may also apply to your situation and are largely outside this library.
Please do not act, or decide not to act, on the strength of this page alone. Take advice from an advocate and solicitor on your own facts. To the extent permitted by law, ALIM and its contributors accept no liability for any loss arising from reliance on this page.
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