Fridae

Malaysian lawmaker Charles Santiago rejected calls for government control of LGBT in the country and said the “systemic discrimination against the LGBT community continues to make Malaysia a dangerous and hostile place for them to live in,” according to a post on his Facebook page Wednesday.

The Democratic Action Party lawmaker was responding to comments made by Islamic religious teacher Ustaz Hanafiah Abd Malek in which he said the government should adopt North Korea’s strict control of the internet to the LGBT community.

“This move should be followed by Malaysia in order to control this deviant symptom. Besides Facebook and the likes, the application that is most dangerous in causing this movement to grow strongly is WeChat. Through this medium, this LGBT group starts to connect and expand,” he was quoted as saying by local daily Sinar Harian.

Santiago said Malaysia’s persecution of LGBT “goes against the spirit of inclusion and has given rise to hate crimes against this already vulnerable community,” and mentioned that it was a reason Malaysia lost their bid to be elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council.