KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s Home Affairs Ministry reportedly confiscated rainbow-colored Swatch watches because they contained the letters “LGBTQ” – referring to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community – written on the faces.
“We seized hundreds of watches, and all of them had the letters ‘LGBTQ’ on the face of the watch,” a government source was reported as saying in a story on Monday (May 29) by Free Malaysia Today (FMT).
“We did not seize the watches solely because they were rainbow-colored. If that’s the case, we’ll have to confiscate Paddle Pop ice cream.”
The seized watches were from Swatch’s Pride series. The watches exhibited six colors rather than the seven seen in a rainbow. The six-color pride flag is a well-known symbol of the LGBT community.
According to local media, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim stated last Thursday, “The only fact I know is that the watches were confiscated because they had LGBT symbols, not because of the colors.”
In response, Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek stated in a statement that the seized timepieces made no reference to the LGBT community.
In a story last Friday, he was cited as saying: “Mr Anwar Ibrahim stated in a recent interview that Swatch’s latest collection of colorful watches includes the letters LGBT on their dials.” He was obviously misinformed.
Source: CNA News