PAS leaders have always been concerned about how Malaysians should dress.

They are positively fixated on the “proper” manner in which cabin crew, athletes, and most recently, nurses should cover themselves.

In their latest move to ensure modesty, the Kota Baru City Hall in Kelantan fined a Chinese woman for dressing inappropriately – on her own premises.

This is not the first such incident in the state.

In 2017, a Muslim man was told by the Kelantan Religious Affairs Department that he could be fined for wearing shorts to play futsal.

Likewise, seven men were warned against wearing thigh-length shorts at a restaurant in Tanah Merah.

There have also been cases of PAS leaders regularly raising the “decency” issue in parliament.

They are most unhappy with the the uniform of flight attendants, which they decry for being far too revealing.

Earlier this year, PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man came under fire for applauding a new local airline for the modest garb of its female crews.

His comments drew the ire of Malaysians who questioned his priorities. Surely there more pressing matters than the clothing of worker that requited his attention.

Next, Kuantan MP Wan Razali Wan Nor, while debating the much-awaited health white paper on health reforms in parliament, complained that the nurse’s uniform “showed (the wearer’s) body shape” and was not shariah-compliant.

He, too, came under severe criticism for his remarks.

It is unfortunate that the party leaders should zoom in on what people wear when there are important issues that they must resolve, especially in Kelantan and Terenggau, the two states governed by the Islamist party. For example, child marriage and the marriageable age.

Selangor and Kedah are the only states to have raised the legal age of marriage to 18.

Data show that from 2010 to 2015, the shariah court approved more than 6,200 underage marriage applications in Malaysia.

About 1,500 cases of child marriage were reported between 2007 and 2017. Since 2018, 1,500 children are married per year.

PAS could have resolved these and a number of other issues, especially when they were part of the Perikatan Nasional federal government.

Sadly, it failed to do so and continues to harp on how one should dress. – July 1, 2023.