Jakarta (AFP) Nov 29, 2009 - Several hundred hardline Muslim protestors staged rallies in Indonesia Sunday to urge the government to prevent the spread of HIV by implementing Islamic law. Ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, members of the Hizbut Tahrir group took to the streets in several cities including Jakarta, Solo, Yogyakarta and Makassar.
"We urge everybody to support the application of sharia in an Islamic caliphate so that, God willing, all of us will be free from the HIV/AIDS threat," Hizbut spokeswoman Febrianti Abassuni said in a statement. In the capital, more than 200 female demonstrators urged the government to close down brothels and ban condoms, which they said encouraged "free sex and unhealthy behaviour".
One banner read: "Prostitutes, drug users and homosexuals are the agents of immorality." Around 270,000 Indonesians are estimated to be infected with HIV, and AIDS has claimed about 8,700 lives in the Muslim-majority nation of 228 million people, according to the UNAIDS agency.
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