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Indonesia won't progress because of persistent stigma, discrimination against LGBT: Commission
Jakarta Post - June 30, 2015
"They have been marginalized, inflicted with violence, isolation. It cannot be justified. [...] We can't build this country with persistent stigmatization of and discrimination against the LGBT community," Hafid told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
He said the government had a lot of work to do, one task of which was to have an operational regulation on the treatment of LGBT people as citizens of this country.
"There should be a more technical procedure on the protection of the LGBT community because much of the violence they have suffered is inflicted by legal authorities," Hafid said.
Currently, Indonesia has no specific law on the protection of the LGBT community except the 1945 Constitution.
Komnas HAM is also calling for more massive information dissemination that the LGBT community is part of the responsibility of the entire society both to protect their rights and to provide recovery programs to heal physical and psychological wounds they are suffering from past abuse.
Forum LGBT Indonesia, a coalition of LGBT individuals, recorded 47 cases of abuse against gay individuals across the country in 2013.These included bullying, physical attacks, verbal abuse and murder, as well as exclusion in the workplace and criminalization. Some of the cases were perpetrated by state actors such as policemen and public order personnel.
When he was asked to comment about the recent US Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, Hafid said Indonesian society was not ready for that. "It's not the time yet," he said. (fsu/ebf)
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