A
recent incident exposes the country’s – and the region’s – lingering challenges
on this front.
By Luke Hunt* | April 14, 2017
Two
“alleged gay men” have become the focus of international attention after being
arrested in the semi-autonomous Aceh province in Muslim-majority Indonesia
where controversial new Islamic bylaws are being enforced. The immediate focus
of the incident is the inhumanity of the fact that the two face 100 lashes for
being gay. But the incident also highlights what is wrong with LGBT rights and
tolerance more generally – both in Indonesia and in some of its other Southeast
Asian neighbors as well.
The
men, aged 20 and 24, were apparently caught in the act in the privacy of a home
amid a raid by vigilantes, and a citizen’s arrest followed. A widely-circulated
video shows a distressed man speaking into a mobile phone: “Brother, please,
help me, help me. We are caught.” He went on to plead for his parents’
intervention.
Human
Rights Watch (HRW) has called for their immediate release, rightly claiming the
lash is a form of torture and should not be used.
“The arrest and detention of these two men
underscores the abuse imbedded in Aceh’s discriminatory, anti-LGBT ordinances,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia division director at HRW.
“These
men had their privacy invaded in a frightening and humiliating manner and now
face public torture for the ‘crime’ of their alleged sexual orientation.”
He
added that Aceh’s parliament had gradually adopted sharia-inspired ordinances
that criminalize non-hijab-wearing women, drinking alcohol, gambling, and
extramarital sexual relations, which can be enforced against non-Muslims.
HRW
added Aceh’s sharia police have previously detained lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender (LGBT) people.
In
October 2015, two women aged 18 and 19 were arrested by sharia police on
suspicion of being lesbians because they embraced in public. They were detained
for three nights at a Sharia police facility in Banda Aceh. Sharia police
repeatedly attempted to compel the two women to identify other suspected LGBT
people in Aceh by showing them photographs of individuals taken from social
media accounts, HRW said.
Though
the two men in the recent controversy were detained under a local ordinance in
Aceh and the province has its own special circumstances – it is the only one of
Indonesia’s 34 provinces that can legally adopt bylaws derived from sharia –
rights groups have rightly taken the government of President Joko “Jokowi”
Widodo to task for not acting on the president’s rhetoric about taking action
against intolerance towards LGBT people. This reveals the folly of
characterizing Indonesia’s troubling record on LGBT rights as being purely an
Aceh or fringe problem.
A
Constitutional Court ruling this week also held that the central government can
no longer repeal local sharia ordinances, thereby further restricting its
ability to scrap laws that violate LGBT rights. It has been viewed as just the
latest in a string of incidents indicating a rising tide of intolerance in
Indonesia.
Indonesia
is not alone when it comes to such cases. Southeast Asia has a mixed record
when it comes to LGBT rights. In Vietnam, the communist one-party state has
been applauded for its attitudes to LGBT and that includes gay marriage. But in
Malaysia, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is languishing in jail after being
convicted of homosexual acts with a consenting adult. His supporters claim the
charges were trumped-up after he won the popular vote over Prime Minister Najib
Razak at elections in 2013.
The
sharp, often extraordinary differences within ASEAN were highlighted by The Diplomat five years
ago when an atheist in Indonesia was arrested for not believing in god – yes it
is a crime – while in Vietnam people were locked-up at the same time for –
believing in god.
In
Indonesia, atheism – little more than a personal opinion – carries a five year
jail term. Similar creeping Islamization has been seen in other places in
Southeast Asia as well, most notably in Malaysia and Brunei, the two other
Muslim-majority countries in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia
has previously imposed sentences of 100 lashes on adulterers. But this was
understood to be the first time it has been used to enforce laws regarding
homosexual crimes.
As
ASEAN turns 50 this year, the self-platitudes and the “celebration of
remarkable milestones” have
been many. It’s a great pity that tolerance, understanding, and respect for
human differences – both in Southeast Asia’s largest country and in other
neighboring states as well – are too often not among them.
* The Diplomat | Luke Hunt can be followed on Twitter @lukeanthonyhunt
- Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
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