An Indonesian city has launched a new campaign to "cleanse" LGBT people of their "social sickness" through religious exorcisms, a move that's been seen as part of the country's growing intolerance towards the community.

Key points: Some communities consider LGBT people to be suffering from an illness

Some communities consider LGBT people to be suffering from an illness Religious exorcisms are gaining mainstream acceptance due to TV shows

Religious exorcisms are gaining mainstream acceptance due to TV shows Conversion therapies have a long-lasting psychological impact on individuals

Local media recently reported that police in Padang had apprehended 18 couples for "psychological support and rehabilitation" — 10 were women identified as lesbians, and eight were transgender.

The belief is that homosexuality and transgenderism are caused by a mental health disorder triggered by supernatural and demonic influences known as "djinn", which can be cured through a ruqyah, or exorcism, to expel the spirits.

Ruqyah has become the preferred method of conversion therapy partly due to it being permissible in the Islamic religion as well as its portrayal on mainstream national television.

One show — also called Ruqyah — conducts televised exorcisms to allegedly cure an array of physical and mental illnesses.

One episode titled Djinn Interference in the Sodom Community featured an allegedly gay man crying, screaming, and shaking uncontrollably as an Islamic cleric reads him verses from the Koran.

Sorry, this video has expired An Indonesian show televises exorcisms 'cure' to homosexuality

The cleric goes on to say a traumatic incident in his past gave way for a "female spirit" to enter his body.

Islamic cleric Aris Fathoni, from the Ruqyah Association for Sharia in Indonesia, told the ABC that he performs the practice by reading religious verses and hitting his patients with a sapu lidi — an Indonesian broomstick — on their backs.

Mr Fathoni claimed the practice is meant to address all ailments "whether medical or non-medical" including "curing" the LGBT community who he believes is suffering from both mental illness and supernatural disturbance.

"There's been a number of cases who have reacted [to the procedure] meaning they're not pure and that there's a supernatural interference inside their bodies pushing them to commit [homosexuality]," he told the ABC.

Mr Fathoni said that in the early 2000s he had "cured" a man who is now married with children.

During the interview with the ABC, Mr Fathoni mostly avoided referring to which acts he deemed "unpure" in the LGBT community, instead referring to the acts in question as "it".

The news comes on the back of a new by-law in the city of Pariaman in West Sumatra to fine gay or transgender people up to 1 million rupiah ($96) for behaviours which are considered to be immoral or "disturb public order".

Homosexuality is not regulated by national law in Indonesia, but the country has seen a growing number of by-laws and local initiatives to target LGBTQI people.

Thousands of resident in Padang have recently come out to rally in favour of the new initiatives being pushed by the local government.

However, the deeming of homosexuality as being deviant is not a broadly held view across the country — for example homosexuality is more moderately viewed in metropolitan areas like Jakarta, although stigmas still persist.

The ABC contacted the Padang Government who declined to comment.

Sorry, this video has expired Sharia police on patrol in Aceh

'Becoming straight': Lasting impact of conversion therapy

A study published by La Trobe University this year found conversion therapy has caused deep and long-lasting harm to LGBT communities around the world due to the "extreme psychological distress" it causes.

Loading

Tim Jones, a cultural historian at La Trobe University, said all of the participants in the study who had undergone some form of conversion therapy were suicidal at one point in their lives.

"Everyone that we had interviewed had contemplated suicide at some point, every single person, and many of them knew people who had killed themselves," he said.

The study's findings do not end there — all 15 participants have had to undergo psychological counselling in response to the conversion therapy practices, and had difficulties functioning sexually and forming relationships later in life.

Muslim protesters hold an anti-LGBT rally outside a mosque in the conservative province of Aceh, where Sharia law is in force. ( Reuters: Antara Foto )

One-third of the participants were encouraged to marry to "become straight," leading to immense guilt. Another one-third were coerced to engaged in conversion therapy while they were underage.

"LGBT people were told that they're particularly broken … and couldn't be full members of the community until they became straight," Dr Jones told the ABC.

The therapies conducted in varying religious communities were found to be strangely similar: they were all based on religious teachings with prayers and scripture reading as a part of the "healing" process, and they all applied some form of psychoanalysis based on the assumption that the individual must have gone through some form of childhood trauma.

"Religious teaching about normative gender and sexuality … is central to all the groups we spoke to," Dr Jones said.