KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Dusk has fallen and the party is just beginning for 29-year-old Asyikin, one of the many young Malay Muslims who hang out in Kuala Lumpur's vibrant Bukit Bintang nightlife district.
A morality crackdown has seen Malaysian Islamic authorities hand out caning and jail sentences for illicit drinking and sex, and launch raids on homes and clubs in the glare of media flashlights.
But for Asyikin, a petite and attractive business executive dressed in a knee-length skirt and strappy high heels, the campaign hasn't dampened her party mood.
"I couldn't care less, I'm partying. Religion to me is a personal thing," she says as she sips a glass of whisky and greets other regulars at the bars and restaurants that line the narrow streets.
Malays, who make up 60 percent of the population, are forbidden to have sex out of wedlock or drink alcohol under the Sharia legal system which runs in parallel to the civil courts in Malaysia.
In an unprecedented case that grabbed world headlines last year, Muslim model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 33, was sentenced to six lashes of the cane for drinking beer.
Kartika's sentence was commuted to community service after an uproar from rights groups, but three other women were quietly caned under Islamic laws in February for having sex out of wedlock.
Despite the highly publicised cases, every weekend Kuala Lumpur's top clubs are packed with fashionably dressed youngsters including Muslim Malays -- many offspring of the nation's elite -- socialising and drinking openly.
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