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string of campaigns condemning the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the country has grown stronger, as the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued an official statement on Wednesday, urging the government to prosecute LBGT people and campaigners.

MUI chairman Ma'€™ruf Amin warned the government to tackle any potential moves by campaigners to legalize gay rights and urged it to issue regulations allowing for the prosecution of people who engaged in same-sex intercourse.

'€œLGBT [activity] is also against the national ideology of Pancasila as well as the 1945 Constitution. It also violates the MUI edict on lesbianism, sodomy and obscenities, which says that such kinds of sexuality are haram and count as crimes,'€ he told a press conference at his office.

The MUI announced its harsh stance on Wednesday after getting support from dozens of Islamic organizations including the Islamic Dakwah Indonesia Institution (LDII) and Wahdah Islamiyah.

'€œWe support the establishment of new regulations banning LGBT [sexual] activities and other deviant types of sexual intercourse and prosecution of those involved in LGBT activities and other deviant types of sexual intercourse, as well as parties that support, encourage or finance LGBT activities in Indonesia,'€ Ma'€™ruf said.

The ulemas also described the LGBT community as a '€œdangerous disease'€ that could spread HIV/AIDS and called on international organizations not to fund LGBT campaigns in Indonesia.

If LGBT activities are not stopped, they could trigger further conflicts '€œthreatening morality and culture'€ Ma'€™ruf said.

With several ministers issuing derogatory statements about LGBT people, the government has so far made only a half-hearted defense of LGBT people, saying that they should have the same rights before the law and access to employment as other citizens, but that they should not take part in any LGBT campaigns.

Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) spokesperson Erlinda said the government must protect children from LGBT campaigns, citing the 2002 Child Protection Law, which states that children should be protected from acts deemed '€œwrong'€.

'€œHomosexuality violates existing laws and qualifies as a crime against human dignity. The laws must mandate the healing of all LGBT people,'€ she said, adding that the Marriage Law and the Pornography Law prohibited sexual orientations other than heterosexuality.

The government must punish those who supported LGBT communities, she said, adding that there was a link between pedophilia and the LGBT community and that child sodomy must be punished severely.

Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin openly called the LGBT community a threat to the country'€™s values.

'€œRemoved from the global network that led to the spreading of the LGBT issue in the country, we see it as a social problem that threatens religious life, the strength of family and national identity,'€ he said.

'€œIt could also become a potential impediment to the legal system of marriage in Indonesia, which doesn'€™t allow same-sex unions,'€ he added.

However, the minister said he did not condone violence toward the LGBT community, saying that their rights were still protected by the nation'€™s 1945 Constitution.

Indonesia should take note of highly homophobic countries in which LGBT people avoided accessing medical services due to social stigma, said Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief of The Lancet, one of the world'€™s prominent medical journals.

'€œWhen you get homophobic people and homophobia, what you do is you drive people away from the health system. People who might have HIV don'€™t go to the health system to get tested or treated,'€ he said.

'€œIf you sign up to be a doctor, then your job is to defend the community. That duty is not only providing clinical care but also being an advocate, sometimes against the government.'€
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