PAS-led Kelantan has reinforced a law requiring women featured in advertisements to wear headscarves.

Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman, Kota Baru municipal council chief, said enforcement officers would tear down posters showing sexily dressed females and those not wearing "tudung" (headscarves).

He told Thursday's The Star daily that businesses had been informed of the ruling because the state government had noticed growing numbers of "inappropriate advertisements".

"This bylaw requiring female models to wear tudung in advertisements is not a new ruling as it had been put into practice since 1992, two years after PAS took over Kelantan," he said.

"However, lately we have noticed some sections of the business community are not adhering to the requirement."

Abdul Aziz said the ruling was aimed at protecting women's image.

"It is not a question of enforcing Islamic laws onto the non-Muslims but getting the priorities right," he said, adding that 85 percent of the state's population who were Muslims supported the ruling.

Controversial decrees

Kelantan authorities had issued a series of controversial religious decrees including banning female civil servants from wearing lipstick and imposing separate pay counters at supermarkets for men and women.

PAS shot to prominance in the 1999 general election when it more than tripled its parliamentary seats from eight to 27. It kept control of Kelantan and captured neighbouring Terengganu.

The Terengganu government has also followed suit to implement Islamic laws by abolishing bridge tolls, banning gambling joints and curbing alcohol sale.

Last month, it said it would stop using "women and sex as well as other hedonistic influences" in its tourism campaigns and planned to ban tourists from wearing bikinis under a new proposed dress code.

PAS also announced plans to amend the state constitution to make Islamic syariah law supreme in Terengganu. Syariah law includes amputation of hands or feet for some criminal offences, a punishment which is not implemented in multicultural Malaysia.

Muslims make up slightly more than half of Malaysia's 23 million population.