JAKARTA, Indonesia — The U.N. human rights chief says “strains of intolerance” once thought foreign to Indonesia are making inroads in the world’s most populous Muslim nation and warned the government against criminalizing its LGBT citizens. He said if Muslim societies such as Indonesia expect others to fight Islamophobia, then such societies should be prepared to end discrimination on other grounds too. Indonesia’s parliament is considering amendments to the criminal code that would outlaw all sex outside marriage and criminalize the country’s besieged LGBT minority. For the past two years LGBT people have been targets of an escalating campaign of raids, arrests, hate-inciting rhetoric from officials and vigilante attacks. Local media reported Wednesday that Jokowi cited local culture and beliefs in telling Zeid that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are not acceptable in Indonesia.

Source: National Post February 07, 2018 05:54 UTC