On Tuesday, the Indonesian parliament passed a criminal code that makes having sexual relations outside of marriage illegal and punishable by up to a year in prison. This is one of a number of legal changes that critics say hurt civil liberties in the world’s third-largest democracy.
The new code, which will apply to both Indonesians and people from other countries, will also make it illegal for unmarried couples to live together. It was passed with support from all political parties, despite warnings from business groups that it could scare away tourists and hurt investment.
But the code won’t go into effect for three years, so rules can be written to make it work.
Related: The central bank says that Indonesia’s monetary policy will be “front-loaded.”
At the moment, Indonesia bans adultery but not sex before marriage.
Laws also make it illegal to use black magic, insult the president or state institutions, spread ideas that go against the state’s ideology, and hold protests without telling the government first.
Critics say that the new laws can be used to police morality in the world’s largest Muslim country, where religious conservatism has been growing in recent years.
Maulana Yusran, the deputy head of Indonesia’s tourism industry board, said that the new bill was “totally counter-productive” at a time when the economy and tourism were starting to recover from the pandemic.
“Hotels and other places for tourists to stay are like their second homes.” “Since this criminal code was passed, hotels have become dangerous places,” he said.
When the criminal code was finally passed after being worked on for decades, lawmakers praised it as a much-needed update to an old colonial law.
The head of the parliamentary commission in charge of changing the code, Bambang Wuryanto, told lawmakers that the old code came from the Dutch and was no longer useful.
Opponents of the bill have pointed out parts that they say are socially backward, will limit free speech, and are a “huge setback” for keeping democratic freedoms after the fall of Suharto in 1998.
In response to the criticism, Indonesia’s Minister of Law and Human Rights, Yasonna Laoly, told parliament, “It’s not easy for a country with many different cultures and ethnic groups to make a criminal code that works for everyone.”
The LGBT Community Is Under Attack
Legal experts say that an article in the code about customary law could make local laws that are discriminatory and based on sharia law even stronger. This could be especially dangerous for LGBT people.
“Regulations that don’t follow human rights principles will happen in conservative areas,” said Bivitri Susanti from the Indonesia Jentera School of Law. She was talking about the fact that some areas already have laws that give women curfews or punish “deviant” sexualities.
People who are charged with corruption will also get lighter sentences under the new laws.
In an earlier version of the bill, the morality charges were changed so that they could only be reported by certain people, like a spouse, parent, or child.
The government had planned to change the country’s colonial-era criminal code in 2019, but protests across the country prevented that from happening.
Related: Indonesia’s 2023 GDP growth may decelerate to 4.4%, according to the central bank.
Some of the provisions have since been watered down, and President Joko Widodo has asked parliament to pass the bill this year before the political climate in the country gets worse before the presidential elections in early 2024.
So far, people haven’t said much about the new law. There were only small protests in the capital on Monday and Tuesday.
