The administration of Depok in West Java says it is committed to preparing a regulation to curb a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement that the administration believes is becoming more rampant in the area.

“[We will make it] to overcome these social deviancy. This mayoral regulation will be an effective regulatory step to block the LGBT [community],” Depok Mayor Mohammad Idris said on Friday, as quoted by antaranews.com.

However, he said drafting such a regulation required a legal basis from the government. Once the government has issued a clear regulation on the LGBT community, the Depok administration will immediately issue its mayoral regulation.

“It will be pointless challenging our regulation if there is already a government regulation on it. At least there should be a presidential regulation that can be the legal basis for the regional regulation of LGBT,” he said.

He had asked relevant institutions in his administration to collect data about the “deviancy”, however, they only had data about people with HIV/AIDS but not about LGBT issues. (hol)