Issue: ‘FPI demands end to gay film festival’

Sept 29, p2: Hundreds of members of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) raided the Erasmus Huis Dutch cultural center in Kuningan, South Jakarta on Tuesday to demand an end to a gay film festival. They removed posters of the movies to be screened during the Q! Film Festival, being held from Sept. 21 to 30 in a number of theaters and cultural centers. Salim Alatas, chairman of the Jakarta branch of the FPI, said organizers of the festival had 24 hours to stop the festival. “We want the festival  to be stopped as it screens movies  that promote homosexual relationships,” Salim was quoted as saying by tempointeraktif.com.

Your comments:

Its time to stage protests in front of the FPI offices. Give them a taste of their own medicine.
Rahadi Widodo
Jakarta

“A religion cannot be properly judged by its followers, but can be properly judged by its teachings.” You should learn about Islam before you judge it.
Movies that promote homosexual relationships are not in accordance with Pancasila values and will have a negative effect on future generation.
How can we build this country if our people live with HIV/AIDS and other diseases that come from homosexual relationships?
Our social order will be broken too. So prevention is better than cure, the police must stop these movies and hold the organizers of the festival to account.
Ahyar
Jakarta

The FPI members must be arrested. They are not the law and have no legal authority. Time to get rid
of them.
Sheldon
Probolinggo

I wonder who is continually feeding these guys the intelligence on the who, when and where of certain events. Cut that line and they will be a lot less effective.
Karim
Lombok

The FPI demands. I get sick of them. This sick group of people is too lazy to work and only busy making trouble. Put them all in prison and then we will see what happens to them.
Wayan
Singaraja

The Q! Film Festival has escaped the attentions of the brainless FPI thugs for some time, as several movies have already been screened at cultural centers operated by foreign legations.
Even the FPI’s backers didn’t want to inflame donor countries like Germany. If the people can no longer be controlled by their masters and there is violence directed against foreign cultural centers, then expect international relations to deteriorate and scholarships and investments
to vanish.
David
Jakarta

Homophobia means you are scared of “gay” people. Many people find homosexuals to be culturally repugnant.
The use of the term homophobia to describe these people is dishonest and an attempt to dismiss people who have every right to their
own opinion.
Anon Omous
Canada

“Members of the hard-line group removed movie posters advertising the festival, which was to be held from Sept. 21 to 30 in a number of theaters and cultural centers.” Why did the police not stop this and arrest them?
Dewi
Jakarta

What if God were a homosexual? Have you ever thought about that? I wonder why God has never been married, etc.
These kinds of question are the “only God knows” type of question. What I mean is, allow God to
answer questions that are not clear to humans! To the FPI members: Don’t play God — it is dangerous in human hands.
Kali
Bali

“We do not want this place to be set on fire because of moral decadence,” Salim said during the rally at the Goethe Institute.
This is a threat under the law, even if veiled. As such, it is also a hate crime. It is quite obvious that the police are working hand in hand with them, or are being paid by an extremely influential organization. They are not doing their duty under the law, or the Constitution. By the same token, the President of Indonesia is failing to follow the law by allowing terrorists to control the law enforcement agencies in Indonesia.
Brien D.
Brisbane