KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 — An anti-LGBT e-book endorsed by the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) has been removed today from the Google Play Store after six years.
Originally published as an app in the store in 2016, it was reportedly removed as the technology giant found the app to have been in breach of its guidelines.
“Whenever an app is flagged to us, we investigate against our Play Store policies and if violations are found we take appropriate action to maintain a trusted experience for all.” the technology giant told UK-based news The Guardian.
Malay Mail’s check confirmed that the app can no longer be found on the store, after Jakim’s most recent promotion for it earlier this month received backlash from the public.
Malay Mail has reported the existence of the e-book and app since 2018. It is published by app developer Raxbit based in Alor Setar, Kedah.
According to Jakim, the app was developed in collaboration with Ihtimam Malaysia Foundation, a Putrajaya-based social foundation that has the Raja Permaisuri Agong as its patron.
Earlier today, Raxbit founder Rafiq Sharman Khamis had posted on Facebook that the app was suspended on Google Play Store, citing “attacks” from the LGBT community.
Jakim’s anti-LGBT officer Mohd Izwan Md Yusof had also in Facebook called on fellow Muslims to rate the app with five stars in order to counter negative reviews, prior to the app being removed.
The 146-page book was originally published way back in 2011 during the Barisan Nasional administration.
The e-book was presented as being written by an anonymous man who claimed to be a former gay Muslim, who blames human lust for homosexual acts.
In 2019, local NGOs included the e-book as among evidence of state-sponsored violence & discrimination against LGBT persons in the country.
A May 2020 report by independent expert Victor Madrigal-Borloz to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council noted Malaysia one of several nations globally that implemented measures to curb LGBT activity at the level of public policy.
The report claimed Malaysia had adopted several programmes and plans to curb behaviours perceived as immoral, including same-sex behaviour, and were found to specifically promote practices of ‘conversion therapy’, including through university programmes.
Conversion therapy, which consists of psychological treatment or spiritual counselling to change a person’s sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual, is widely seen by the medical and scientific community as potentially harmful and a form of pseudoscience.
The practice is opposed and has been legally challenged, or even banned, in countries such as Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Ecuador, Israel, Lebanon, Malta, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
