JAKARTA, 28 August 2004 - Religious leaders and government officials in Indonesia must modernize their attitudes towards gay people if they are to halt the spread of HIV in the country, according to health workers. Speaking to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, the country's National Committee on AIDS Control said that religious intolerance of homosexuality was a stumbling block in the strategy to stop the spread of HIV.
"We will also try to address the openness absent in the government and also in religious groups in this matter," committee member Suharto told the agency, adding that a meeting next month would be held to address the problem. Indonesia is a mainly Muslim country in which lesbian and gay people are often discounted or thought not to exist. However, along with China and Eastern Europe, it is being picked out by United Nations officials as a hot spot of HIV increases.
Indonesia is not the only country in Asia that is being accused of outdated attitudes towards gay people and the fight against HIV. Nepal is also the focus of condemnation from international human rights groups, after the government arrested members of a gay rights group that also works in HIV advocacy. Nearly 40 members of the Blue Diamond Society were arrested earlier this month, and were released on bail last week. Since then, they have accused the police of being violent and discriminating against them while they were in custody.
Additionally, the country's supreme court is currently considering a call for the group to be shut down, after complaints it was "advocating homosexuality." According to the UNAIDS organization, the Asia Pacific region is home to around 19 percent of the world's HIV-positive population. New infections in the region sent the total of HIV-positive people in the region to 7.4 million. Indonesia saw a sharp increase last year, UNAIDS says, particularly in men who sleep with men without protection, drug users and sex workers.
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