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Horrified Australian tourists criticized Indonesia’s new ban on sex outside of marriage.
On Tuesday, Indonesia’s Parliament voted unanimously to approve the ban, which will affect both citizens and foreign visitors.
Bali is one of the most popular tourist destinations for Australians, with over a million visitors in a typical year.
However, having sex outside of marriage could now see Australian visitors receive a one-year jail sentence, while cohabiting unmarried couples could face up to six months in prison.
In reaction to the ban, Australian tourists described it as “terrifying”.
Bali is one of the most popular tourist destinations for Australians, with over a million visitors in a typical year.
One tourist told Today: ‘That’s terrifying. I don’t want to be in an Indonesian prison for 12 months because I slept with someone I don’t know.’
Another said: “I always come to Bali, but if it affects me and my partner, obviously we won’t be able to.”
The ban is part of a review of the country’s penal code that has been in the works for years.
The new code also expands an existing blasphemy law and maintains a five-year prison term for deviations from the core tenets of Indonesia’s six recognized religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
The code still needs the president’s approval, and the government says it won’t be fully implemented for several years.
Adultery charges must be based on police reports filed by a spouse, parent or child.
Citizens could also face a 10-year prison term for associating with organizations that follow Marxist-Leninist ideology and a four-year sentence for spreading communism.
Human rights groups criticized some of the revisions as too broad or vague and warned that adding them to the code could penalize normal activities and threaten free speech and privacy rights.
However, some advocates hailed the passage as a victory for the country’s LGBTQ community. After fierce deliberation, lawmakers finally agreed to remove an article proposed by Islamic groups that would have outlawed gay sex.
The revised code also retains the death penalty, despite calls by the National Human Rights Commission and other groups to abolish the death penalty. But the new code adds a 10-year probationary period to the death penalty.
If the convicted person behaves well during this period, his sentence will be reduced to life imprisonment or 20 years in prison.
One tourist told Today: ‘That’s terrifying. I don’t want to be in an Indonesian prison for 12 months because I slept with someone I don’t know’
The ban is part of a review of the country’s penal code that has been in the works for years as Australians weighed whether they could continue to visit the country.
The code maintains an earlier ban on abortion, but updates it to add exceptions already provided for in a 2004 Medical Practice Act, for women with life-threatening medical conditions and for rape, as long as the fetus is less than 12 weeks old.
Under Indonesian regulations, legislation passed by parliament becomes law after being signed by the president. But even without the president’s signature, it automatically goes into effect after 30 days, unless the president issues a regulation to cancel it.
President Joko Widodo is widely expected to sign the revised code in light of its expanded approval process in parliament. But the law is likely to take effect gradually over a period of up to three years, according to Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Edward Hiariej.
“A lot of implementing regulations have to be drawn up, so it’s impossible in one year,” he said.
The code reinstates the prohibition of insulting an incumbent president or vice president, state institutions and national ideology. Insults to a sitting president must be reported by the president and can lead to up to three years in jail.
Hiariej said the government provided “the strictest possible explanation that distinguishes between insults and criticism.”
The current penal code is a legacy of the Dutch colonial administration. The updates have languished for decades as lawmakers in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation debated how to adapt the code to their traditional cultures and norms. Indonesia declared independence on August 17, 1945.
Not only will sex outside of marriage be prohibited, but also living with the couple before getting married, according to the new penal code that will be approved on December 15
An earlier revised code was on the verge of approval in 2019, but President Widodo urged lawmakers to delay the vote amid mounting public criticism that led to nationwide protests involving tens of thousands of people.
Opponents said it contained articles that discriminated against minorities and that the legislative process lacked transparency. Widodo instructed Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly to get input from various groups as lawmakers debated the articles.
A parliamentary working group finalized the bill in November and lawmakers approved it unanimously on Tuesday, in what Laoly hailed as a “historic step.”
“It turns out that it is not easy for us to break with the living colonial legacy, even though this nation no longer wants to use colonial products,” Laoly told a press conference.
“Completing this process shows that even 76 years after the Dutch Penal Code was adopted as the Indonesian Penal Code, it is never too late to produce laws on our own,” Laoly said. ‘The Penal Code is a reflection of the civilization of a nation.’
Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that laws that penalize criticism of public leaders are contrary to international law and that the fact that some forms of expression are considered insulting is not enough to justify restrictions or sanctions.
“The danger of oppressive laws is not that they are broadly enforced, but that they provide an avenue for selective enforcement,” said Andreas Harsono, lead Indonesian researcher at the group.
Many hotels, even in tourist areas like Bali and the Jakarta metropolitan area, will be at risk of losing visitors, he added.
“These laws allow police to extort bribes, officials to jail political enemies, for example, with blasphemy law,” Harsono said.