A ruling party MP’s anti-gay rant and boast about forcing gay men to serve as military porters during junta rule has caused uproar in his country.

Hla Swe, who is a member of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), said in a Facebook post that while he was a military officer in 1980-1981, he had deliberately forced gay men to serve as military porters, a practice internationally criticized as a war crime, the Myanmar Times reported.

He added that he had forced them to shout, ‘We won’t live as gays anymore,’ as a condition to be released as forced labor.

The Times reported that the MP’s post was in response to a man identified as Sar Du Gyi who apparently called him a ‘son of a bitch’ in a post.

‘I checked his Facebook account and found that he had attacked me because he is gay,’ the MP said.

He added, ‘I hate gays very much because they are useless. I call them ‘fake people”.

The MP is said to have also posted a screen grab of the man’s friends, saying, ‘Look his gay friends.’

The Times noted that while a few Facebook users agreed with his views, the majority of the approximately 400 comments posted condemned the rant.

One described his post as ‘vulgar’ while another urged the MP to be more respectful saying, ‘Please, you’re an MP: control your manners, don’t be childish.’

His comments also drew criticism from local LGBTI activists.

‘I condemn his deed. He is spreading hate speech. MPs are supposed to make laws to protect people’s rights,’ said Ko Phyo Thit Lu, of human rights education NGO Colours Rainbow, said in the Times.

‘There are many gays… workings as doctors, engineers and so forth,’ he added.

He added that rights activists would report U Hla Swe to Facebook for spreading hate speech.

‘He should take responsibility for his actions. This is shocking. In other countries, he would be forced to make a public apology,’ he said.

When contacted by Coconuts Myanmar, he said he ‘didn’t want to talk about gays anymore,’ but couldn’t resist telling the reporter, ‘you seem to be gay, if you want to protect gays.’

He also added, ‘I don’t like gays. I hate homosexuality. It is unnatural. I don’t like them and I don’t want to talk to them. Though you say it’s discrimination or whatever, actually, I [just] don’t like them.’

Myanmar, a former British colony, criminalizes sexual relations between men under Article 377 of its Penl Code which prohibits ‘intercourse against the order of nature’ and provides for a prison sentence of up to 10 years.