The upstanding Malaysian who's spied on 1,200 couples having sex

In many countries, a man who had spied on 1,200 couples having sex would be put behind bars and added to the sexual offenders register.

But in Malaysia, which upholds Shariah law for the majority Malay-Muslim population, he is lauded as an "anti-vice volunteer".

The above-mentioned Malaysian volunteer, interviewed in The Star newspaper, said he was giving up his role after six years because he "cannot take it any longer".

The work certainly sounds demanding. Firstly, the volunteers go to "hot spots" where couples often seek intimacy.

"We listen for sounds of heavy breathing and kissing," he tells the government-owned newspaper. “We then move in and aim our torchlights on the couples. In most cases, they are caught naked.”

Rather than arresting the forniactors straight away, the anti-vice squad prefers to observe the couple for a while, not for any untoward purpose but purely "to get evidence for prosecution purposes", according to the newspaper.

As with the head of the Shariah police in the strictly Islamic Indonesian province of Aceh, who was angered by women wearing tight trousers through which "you can see the shadow of the vagina", you have to wonder if these moral policemen take some perverse pleasure from what they do.