Manama: A Kuwaiti lawmaker, who earlier called for flats used by gay people to meet to be raided as their “immoral acts would never be tolerated”, said he was ready to sit with homosexuals who wanted “solutions for their issues”.

MP Hamdan Al Azimi earlier this month asked the interior ministry to conduct raids on flats “where gay people indulge in their illicit debauchery that could not be tolerated under any pretext.”

“These people either regain their senses and abandon their lives of humiliation and disgrace or face the law in its most stringent application,” he said.

“Local gays who have physiological and psychological issues should be treated appropriately so that they can become good citizens and reintegrate in society while non-Kuwaiti gays should be deported promptly, particularly that our virtue-based society has zero tolerance for them,” said Al Azimi who heads a national commission to resist “negative phenomena".

The lawmaker said that all the state agencies and establishments as well as the civil society should stand against gay people in order to curb the phenomenon.

“The commission will hold consultations with all parties who have links to the issue of gays in the country. We will sit mainly with the interior ministry because we want a harsher policy towards gay people,” he said. “We feel that if the authorities were stricter in dealing with them, we would not see these gay people continue their decadence and depravity,” he said.

On Saturday, the lawmaker said that the commission was ready to sit with all gay people “if they are serious about solutions for their problems.”

“The commission aims to achieve reform, but at the same time, it cannot tolerate disgraceful behaviour or allow practices that are contrary to Islam and to moral integrity,” he said in remarks published by local daily Al Rai on Sunday.

The commission is ready to sit with any homosexual separately and bring in experts for assistance, he added.

“We do know some people have physiological problems that could be addressed properly by experts,” he said. “We will start sitting with those who seek genuine help starting next week,” he said.

In October, a health ministry official caused furore when he called for introducing medical tests to detect gays coming into Kuwait and the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states — Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The test would allow the authorities to prevent gays and lesbians from entering the Gulf countries where homosexual acts are banned, the official said.

“Health centres conduct routine medical check to assess the health of the expatriates when they come into the GCC countries,” he said. “However, we will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays who will be then barred from entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states.”