Indonesia | Muslim leaders reject support for any LGBT groups

Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla

Indonesia’s most influential Muslim leaders said yesterday they reject all promotion and support for lesbian and gay groups and encouraged the government to make gay sex and the promotion of LGBT activities illegal.
The statement by the Indonesian Ulema Council and leaders of other Islamic organizations followed the government’s move on Monday urging the U.N. Development Program to deny funding to programs regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the government respected individual rights of sexual expression, “but it is wrong to encourage other people … and to campaign for legalization of same-sex marriage.”
The council’s statement said the clerics and other Muslim leaders supported the government’s rejection of foreign funding of LGBT causes and they called for bans on promoting and funding LGBT activities in Indonesia.
The UNDP’s representatives in Jakarta could not be reached for comment.
Most of Indonesian society is tolerant, but homosexuality is a sensitive issue and leaders in Indonesia’s secular government have made high-
profile attempts to dim LGBT visibility. It recently told instant messaging apps to remove stickers featuring same-sex couples, and a government minister last month said openly gay students should be banned from the University of Indonesia campuses.
Some people worry that overseas funding could encourage a campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in the country.
Activist Poedjiati of Gaya Nusantara, an LGBT advocacy group, said it is clearly a human rights violation to ban and criminalize their activities. She also did not see any chance for the country to move toward same-sex marriage.
“So far no one here ever talked about that,” Poedjiati, who uses a single name, told The Associated Press. “The issue of such marriage is still very, very far for Indonesia.” AP

Relatives of an Afghan boy lay his body in the grave during his funeral procession in Uruzgan province

Afghanistan| UN says children are being recruited to fight in war

The United Nations yesterday condemned all sides in Afghanistan’s conflict for using child soldiers, noting that while government forces have reduced the number of under-age recruits, insurgent groups continue to train large numbers of fighters under the age of 18.
The Afghan government had made progress on the issue, said Leila Zerrougui, special representative of the U.N. Secretary General for children and armed conflict. However, she added that Afghan Local Police — who often operate independently from central oversight and have been widely criticized as unprofessional and corrupt — are major perpetrators of child recruitment among Afghan forces.
Insurgent groups recruited more children in areas where the fighting is fiercest, she said. The Taliban, who have been fighting the government for over 15 years, mainly recruit children in provinces bordering Pakistan, she added.
The border with Pakistan is long and porous, and Pakistan’s government has been accused of protecting and supporting Taliban fighters while using the group to fight a proxy war.
The Pakistani authorities have denied connections with the insurgent group, and have levelled similar accusations at Afghanistan’s government.
Zerrougui spoke to reporters a day after the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report accusing Taliban forces of boosting the number of children in their ranks since the middle of last year, in violation of international laws against the use of child soldiers.
The report said insurgents “have been training and deploying children for various military operations” in Afghanistan, including making and deploying bombs.
It found that children between the ages of 13 and 17 were given military training in madrassas, or religious schools
The use of child soldiers is illegal in Afghanistan, which ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1994, committing the country to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers. AP