Indonesia’s parliament on Tuesday approved a bill criminalizing sex outside marriage and concubinage, denounced by human rights advocates as a rollback of freedoms and a shift towards fundamentalism in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.
This reform of the penal code, which dates from the Dutch colonial era, was adopted by a majority of deputies. The text, which still needs to be signed by the president, will come into force in three years.
It makes sex outside marriage punishable by one year in prison, and the cohabitation of unmarried couples by six months in prison, according to a copy of the law consulted by AFP.
“We have done our best to take into account the important issues and the different opinions that have been debated,” Justice Minister Yasonna Laoly told parliament.
“However, it is time for us to make a historic decision on amending the penal code, and leaving behind the colonial penal code that we inherited” when the country gained independence in 1949, he said. added.
A spokesman for the committee responsible for drawing up the bill at the Ministry of Justice, Albert Aries, said the reform will protect the institution of marriage.
Mr. Aries stressed that premarital and extramarital sexual relations can only be denounced by the spouse, parents or children, which will de facto limit the scope of the text.
But the reform has been criticized by human rights defenders, who denounce a decline in freedoms, and by the Indonesian business community. The latter believe that it will harm tourism, although the authorities have assured that foreigners visiting the island of Bali will not be affected.
Impact on tourism
In a symposium ahead of Tuesday’s vote, US Ambassador to Indonesia Sung Yong Kim expressed concern about what he called “morality clauses” in the penal code that may him, have a “negative” impact on businesses.
Early versions of the bill intended to make homosexuality illegal, but this provision disappeared from the final text.
For Andreas Harsono, of the organization Human Rights Watch, the prohibition of sex outside marriage and concubinage could however be used to “criminalize” the LGBTQ community, in a country which does not authorize marriage between people of the same sex.
Human rights groups say the new amendments also underscore a growing shift towards fundamentalism in a country long hailed for its tolerance and which recognizes five official religions alongside majority Islam.
“The adoption of the penal code bill is a clear step backwards in the protection of civil rights […] including freedom of expression and freedom of the press,” Usman Hamid, director of Amnesty International Indonesia, told AFP.
In 2019, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against a similar bill, forcing the government to back down.
The new code contains several new articles on blasphemy, already a crime in Indonesia, which broaden its definition. Now, encouraging or forcing others to renounce their religion, apostasy, is also a crime punishable by imprisonment.
The reform also punishes with up to four years in prison the dissemination of an ideology “contrary to the Pancasila” – the official Indonesian ideology, which emphasizes unity and respect for ethnic and religious minorities.
Another reform approved on Tuesday: the death penalty, often imposed in Indonesia for drug-related crimes, will now be accompanied by a period of probation of ten years, at the end of which it can be commuted to life in prison if the convict showed exemplary behavior.
A dozen people gathered in central Jakarta on Tuesday holding signs against the new penal code, accusing it of “reinstating the law of the colonial era”.
Bambang Wuryanto, the head of the parliamentary committee that oversaw deliberations on the text, acknowledged that “it is a human product and therefore will never be perfect”. But he urged critics to “file a legal appeal with the constitutional court” instead of protesting.
Adultery is a crime in several countries, especially those that apply Islamic law, with particularly heavy sentences in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, but also in the Philippines, a country with a Catholic majority.