A Kazakh politician has said LGBTI people can be easily identified by blood testing for ‘degeneracy.’

Dauren Babamuratov, leader of the Bolashak national movement, made the comments last week at a press conference calling for laws banning LGBTI people from spreading ‘propaganda,’ taking public office and serving in the military.

TengriNews website quoted him as saying, ‘We have stooped so low that LGBTs no longer hide their orientation. One can see a lot of people in the city’s malls and other public places – these are young people in colored pants.

‘This means they no longer hide their [sexual] orientation. I think it is very easy to identify a gay person by his or her DNA. A blood test can show the presence of degeneratism in a person.

‘Unfortunately, suppressing activities of the LGBT community in Kazakhstan is extremely difficult, because there is no law in our country prohibiting this type of activity, that is, the promotion of homosexuality.’

He said the former Kazakh capital Almaty had 14 gay clubs and bars and was also ‘the gay capital of Central Asia.’

Activist and journalist Zhanar Sekerbayeva said, ‘There is no gay "propaganda" in Kazakhstan, but there is homophobia.

‘The question of gay marriage in Kazakhstan has never been on the agenda. No one has been promoting [gay lifestyle]. There have been no public speeches or gay pride parades. There is only homophobia and discrimination of women.’

‘LGBT community is not an invention of the West. And they (gay people) are much more traditional than ‘traditional’ heterosexuals. LGBT people have always been there since the ancient times – Ancient Rome, Greece, it is only that the attitude towards them was different.’

Last month a poster for a Almaty gay bar showing Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and Kazakh composer Kurmangazy Sagyrbayuly kissing caused outrage in the former Soviet state.