Indonesians can soon be jailed for sex outside marriage and insulting the president
- Indonesia is expected to ratify sweeping changes to its criminal code on Tuesday to ban premarital sex and cohabitation of unmarried couples
- Insulting the president and spreading views counter to the secular national ideology will also be outlawed
Among the most controversial revisions to the code are articles that would penalise sex outside of marriage with up to one year in jail and prohibit cohabitation between unmarried couples. Insulting the president and spreading views counter to the secular national ideology, known as the Pancasila, will also be outlawed.
Legal experts and civil society groups say such changes to the penal code are a “huge setback” for the world’s third-largest democracy.
“The state cannot manage morality. The government’s duty is not as an umpire between conservative and liberal Indonesia,” said Bivitri Susanti, a law expert from the Indonesia Jentera School of Law.
Indonesia’s population is predominantly Muslim and has sizeable groups of Hindus, Christians and people of other faiths. Most Indonesian Muslims practice a moderate version of Islam, but recent years have seen a rise in religious conservatism that has crept into politics.
Deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, and Bambang Wuryanto, head of the parliamentary commission overseeing the revision, told Reuters that parliament would hold a plenary session on Tuesday to ratify the new code.