Sir, – After the initial shock of reading in The Irish Times that Indonesia's supreme court is considering whether to make homosexuality illegal (August 10th) and having checked that it was indeed 2016 and not 1916, I contemplated what makes a country civilised. Article 2 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone is entitled to all rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind". It goes on to outline those rights and freedoms in Article 7: " All are equal before the law and entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law". Article 12 states: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence". It doesn't say that these rights apply to everyone except homosexuals.
The Washington Post in an article published recently listed over 35 countries where homosexuality is illegal and 10 where it carries the death penalty: Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Iran, Qatar, Mauritania, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. These countries are all members of the United Nations, they have signed up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but clearly the barbaric treatment of homosexuals in these countries makes them unfit for membership.
Surely now in the 21st century it is time to expel these barbarous countries from this club of nations until such time as they can act like civilised nations. – Yours, etc,
CHARLES McLAUGHLIN,
Portobello,
Dublin 8.