Malaysian official says they have cured nearly 1,500 LGBT people through rehabilitation
The official also slammed all-male boarding schools claiming they influence gay tendencies
By Steve Brown
A Malaysian official has claimed nearly 1,500 people have been ‘cured’ of homosexuality through a rehabilitation programme.
Mohd Izwan Md Yusof – an official in the government’s Malaysian Islamic Development Department – made the claim during a speech on LGBT issues on Monday (October 29) following the country’s crackdown on the LGBT community, according to the Malay Mail.
He said: “In Islam, we don’t support the LGBT life-style but we have to take a different approach to counsel them instead of hating them.
“We have helped 1,450 people under the programme where some have went on to get married, some have changed their dressing and some are practicing control from going back to that life-style.”
The $200 million programme is funded by the government and is a spiritual camp which makes LGBT people “go back to the right path”.
Yusof claimed that the LGBT community has increased from 173, 000 to 310,000 and blamed the internet and social media for the increase.
He also went on to attack all-male boarding schools and said: “These same-sex boarding schools meant the students spend a lot of time with the same sex and they might be unaware of the inappropriate influences they are exposed to especially at a young age.
“Parents should be more aware of their children’s activities because gay tendencies can be developed at a young age due to LGBT influences.”