The central business district skyline is seen during sunset in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, April 29, 2019. Indonesia’s parliament has passed a long-awaited and controversial amendment to The country’s penal code, Tuesday, December 6, 2022, criminalizes sex outside of marriage and applies to visiting citizens and foreigners alike.
Dita Alangkara/AP
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Dita Alangkara/AP
The central business district skyline is seen during sunset in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, April 29, 2019. Indonesia’s parliament has passed a long-awaited and controversial amendment to The country’s penal code, Tuesday, December 6, 2022, criminalizes sex outside of marriage and applies to visiting citizens and foreigners alike.
Dita Alangkara/AP
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s parliament has approved a long-awaited and controversial amendment to the country’s penal code that criminalizes sex outside of marriage and applies it to citizens as well. as foreigners visit. A congressional task force finalized the bill in November and lawmakers unanimously passed it on Tuesday.
According to Deputy Minister for Law and Human Rights Edward Hiraeij, after ratification, the new penal code must be signed by the president. The penal code will not apply immediately, but it will take up to three years to transition from the old code to the new one.
“That (the new Penal Code) has a lot of enforcement to do, so it can’t be in one year, but keep in mind that (the transition period) is three years at most,” said Hiraeij.
A copy of the revised penal code obtained by The Associated Press includes several amendments that make sex outside of marriage punishable by a year in prison and a six-month fine for cohabitation. life, but adultery must be based on a police report filed by their spouse, parent or child. .
It also said it was illegal to promote contraception and blasphemy religion, and reinstated a ban on insulting the sitting president and vice president, state institutions and national ideology . Insults to the sitting president must be reported by the president and is punishable by up to three years in prison.
Hiariej said the government had given “the strictest possible explanation to distinguish between insults and criticisms.”
The code asserts that abortion is a crime, but adds exceptions for women with life-threatening medical conditions and for rape, provided the fetus is less than 12 weeks old. age, in accordance with what is prescribed in the Law on Medical Practice 2004.
Human rights groups criticized some of the proposed amendments as being too broad or vague and warned that their inclusion in the new penal code could punish normal activities and threaten freedom of expression and privacy.
However, some supporters hailed it as a victory for the country’s LGBTQ minority. Lawmakers in a heated session finally agreed to repeal a provision proposed by Muslim groups that would make same-sex sex illegal.
The law would also maintain the death penalty in the criminal justice system despite calls from the National Human Rights Commission and other groups to abolish the death penalty, as dozens of other countries have already done. perform.
The penal code has languished for decades while legislators in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country grapple with how to adapt the indigenous culture and norms of the country. it with the penal code, a living legacy of the Dutch colonial government.
An earlier bill was ready to be passed in 2019, but President Joko Widodo urged lawmakers to delay voting on the bill amid growing public criticism leading to a nationwide protest. country when tens of thousands of people took to the streets. Opponents argue that it lacks transparency in the law-making process and contains provisions that discriminate against minorities. Widodo instructed Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly to gather comments from various communities while lawmakers discussed the articles.
The new law says that the death penalty is interspersed with probation. This means that a judge cannot immediately pronounce a death sentence. If within 10 years the convict does a good job, the death penalty shall be changed to life imprisonment or 20 years imprisonment.
The code also extends the existing Blasphemy Law and maintains a 5-year prison sentence for acts that deviate from the central tenets of the six religions recognized by Indonesia: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Hinduism. Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Citizens could face a 10-year sentence under the bill for affiliation with Marxist-Leninist ideological organizations and a 4-year sentence for spreading communism.
Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday that laws punishing people who criticize public leaders are contrary to international law and the fact that certain forms of expression are considered offensive is not enough. to justify restrictions or penalties.
“The danger of oppressive laws is not that they will be widely adopted, but that they provide avenues for selective enforcement,” said Andreas Harsono, a senior Indonesia researcher at the group. .
Many hotels, including in tourist areas like Bali and urban Jakarta, will be at risk of losing guests, he added.
“These laws allow the police to extort bribes, allow officials to imprison political enemies, such as blasphemy laws,” Harsono said.
Indonesia, the fourth most populous country and third largest democracy in the world, is an outpost of democracy in a Southeast Asian region of authoritarian governments.
