Indonesia said Thursday there was “no room” for the gay community in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, as activists blasted officials for an unprecedented series of LGBT attacks.
A wave of angry rhetoric directed at homosexuals earlier this year – including a call to ban them from university campuses – was the first time senior officials had publicly attacked the Southeast Asian nation’s gay community, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Thursday.
Indonesia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) citizens have long been targeted by vigilante Islamist groups.
Rights of citizens like going to school and getting an ID card are protected, but there is no room in Indonesia for the proliferation of the LGBT movement
But the community experienced an “immediate deterioration” in their rights following a sustained assault by ministers, religious hardliners and influential Islamic organisations over a two-month period, HRW said.
In response, the government said protecting LGBT rights was not a priority.
“Rights of citizens like going to school and getting an ID card are protected, but there is no room in Indonesia for the proliferation of the LGBT movement,” presidential spokesman Johan Budi said.
Some of the most high-profile figures making anti-gay statements during the backlash – which activists believe may have been triggered by media coverage of the US decision to legalise same-sex marriage – were government ministers.