Malaysia’s celebrity transwoman Nur Sajat Kamaruzzaman was allegedly sexually assaulted by religious officers who were interrogating her earlier this year, she told New York Times in an interview published yesterday.
Sajat, 36, who has been granted asylum in Australia, alleged that at least three men from the Selangor Islamic Religious Department, or JAIS, had pinned her down and groped her breasts at the Shah Alam office, where she was called for questioning in January, according to the report.
When confronted by the cosmetics entrepreneur’s mother, Maimon Omar, who witnessed the assault, an officer said that it was a non-issue since Sajat was perceived as a man.
“They think it is justified to touch my private parts and my breasts because they perceive me as a male person,” Sajat was quoted as saying. “They didn’t treat me with any compassion or humanity.”
On the same day, Sajat was handcuffed and officially charged under the Shariah law for insulting Islam in 2018, when she wore a floral headscarf and a pink dress at a religious school.
Sajat later leaked footage of her in distress during the interrogation and later filed a police complaint against the officers who allegedly assaulted her. No further action has been taken against those officers.
Sajat is serving quarantine in a hotel in the Sydney suburb of Canterbury city. She has shown her 342,000 followers photos of her new home via Instagram stories and continues to promote her business on social media.
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