Kazakhstan lawmaker Bakhytbek Smagul has called for his country’s LGBT community to be driven underground and wants to outlaw same-sex relationships
A lawmaker in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan wants to close all the gay bars in his country and have people locked up for being gay.
Homosexuality has been legal in Kazakhstan since 1998 but Bakhytbek Smagul, a deputy in the Parliament of Kazakhstan, wants to recriminalize it, claiming that gay men will undermine the country’s ability to defend itself.
‘I believe it necessary not only to enhance the article 11 of the Family Code [listing those who are not allowed to marry], but also to develop a draft law eradicating same-sex relations, and close the nightclubs everywhere,’ Smagul told Khazakhstan Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov during a plenary session in the Lower House according to Tengri News.
‘Tell me, how will gay men be able to protect the borders of our country? How will they defend us? What will be their impact on the country’s demography?’
Smagul also said not criminalizing homosexuality put Kazakhstan at odds with its neighbors in Central Asia.
‘We should not envisage the future of our nation outside the family bonds when forming the Kazakhstan national ideology,’ Smagul said.
‘Families will not be developing in the right way if same-sex relations are promoted openly. In Central Asia, where ancient cultures cross, and with Kazakhstan being an active member of the Islamic Cooperation Organization, they harm the image of our country and its domestic policies.’
Smagul claimed that neighboring Russia was moving to outlaw same-sex relationships and claimed Indonesia had done so as well.
Only the autonomous region of Aceh criminalizes homosexuality in Indonesia.
Smagul’s comments follow calls by other lawmakers in Kazakhstan for a Russian style ban on so-called gay propaganda.
by Andrew Potts
Source – Gay Star News
