Jakarta, Indonesia - An Indonesian hardline Muslim group picketed foreign cultural centres Tuesday to protest against their support for a gay-themed film festival.
The protestors from the Islamic Defenders' Front (FPI) demanded that Germany's Goethe Institut and the Centre Culturel Francais stop the screening of films as part of the Q! Film Festival organized by the local gay community.
The institutes are among four foreign cultural centres that sponsor the festival, which opened on Friday, and serve as venues for the screening.
"FPI is determined to stop this twisted campaign of promiscuity, homosexuality and lesbianism in Indonesia ... which is being supported by liberal NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and sponsored by foreign funds," the group said in a statement.
The group, known for past attacks on bars it accused of harbouring drug users and prostitutes, demanded the centres to cancel the screenings within 24 hours. They later demonstrated at the Dutch cultural centre, Erasmus Huis.
The festival's organizers vowed to go ahead with the screenings despite the protest.
"We will do our best to hold the events as scheduled," they said in a message on microblogging site Twitter.
The festival, held in five major Indonesian cities, has been dubbed by the organizers as the largest gay-themed film festival in South-East Asia and the first in a Muslim-majority country.
The annual event was first held in 2003.
Homosexuality is not a crime in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, and is generally tolerated, with television comedy shows regularly featuring effeminate men and cross-dressers.