Indonesian lawmakers on Tuesday approved a sweeping new penal code that criminalizes sex outside of marriage, as part of a series of changes that critics say threaten human rights and freedoms in the Southeast Asian country.
The new code, which also applies to foreign residents and tourists, bans premarital cohabitation, apostasy and provides for punishments for insulting the president or expressing opinions contrary to national ideology.
“Everyone agreed to ratify the (project changes) into law,” said lawmaker Bambang Wuryanto, who headed the parliamentary committee tasked with revising the colonial-era code. “The old code belongs to the Dutch heritage… and is no longer relevant.”
The world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, Indonesia has seen a rise in religious conservatism in recent years.
Strict Islamic laws are already enforced in parts of the country, including the semi-autonomous province of Aceh, where alcohol and gambling are banned.
Public floggings also take place in the region for a range of crimes, including homosexuality and adultery.
An earlier draft of the code was due to pass in 2019 but was delayed after nationwide protests prompted Indonesian President Joko Widodo to intervene.
In a televised address at the time, Widodo said he had decided to postpone the vote after “seriously considering feedback from different parties who oppose some substantial content of the penal code”.
Ahead of the vote, rights groups and critics warned that the new code would have “a disproportionate impact on women” and would further restrict human rights and freedoms in the country of more than 270 million people.
Human Rights Watch Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono said the laws are “a setback to already declining religious freedom in Indonesia”, warning that “non-believers can be prosecuted and jailed”.
“The danger of oppressive laws is not that they are widely enforced, it’s that they provide an avenue for selective enforcement,” he said.
According to the laws, sex outside of marriage carries a possible prison sentence of one year, and the crime of blasphemy, already registered in Indonesia, can now carry a prison sentence of five years.
Hadi Rahmat Purnama of the University of Indonesia law school said the laws would be implemented after a three-year transition period.
Source: CNN Brasil
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