One law for us, another for them?
Certificates, please. Photo credit BBC
It seems Indonesia’s
new bonk-ban laws are discriminatory and racist. Bad news if you believe legal systems should
be impartial, but good tidings for ‘bule’ (white skin foreigners). So sayeth a governor.
The national parliament in Jakarta this
month unanimously passed a law with 624 articles across 37 chapters, an overdue
clean-up of the century-old criminal code left over from the Dutch colonial
era.
The section banning sex outside marriage
has aroused concern and ridicule; implementation will be impossible; easier to
prohibit gravity.
But the new laws go beyond
the bedroom into newsrooms and places where people talk, write, blog, vlog and
tell the world their thoughts and pains. That’s all part of being a
democracy. Indonesia claims to be a
member.
But should a free-speech
exerciser defame (whatever that means), the President, his ministers, the
five-point national ideology of Pancasila and just about anyone claiming VIP
status, then the clink beckons. There’s
no defence of truth.
Likewise with blasphemy, encouraging apostasy, treason and publishing fake news or
anything which creates disturbance or community unrest. Which is
what the new laws have done already.
Article
424 covers the sale and supply of alcohol. Indonesian celebrity lawyer Hotman Paris commented: ‘The
article doesn't make sense, there’s no legal reason and it must be removed from
the face of this earth.’
A woman who’s had an abortion faces up to four years in jail. A
section on ‘indecent acts’ could target non-heterosexuals. However, there’s a positive – death sentences
can be turned to life imprisonment if the offender behaves well for a decade and
shows remorse. Take note, USA.
At first, it was said the new laws
applied to everyone in the Muslim-majority country. Then Governor Wayan Koster assured foreigners in Bali they’re exempt.
This is a curious pledge
akin to the Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles telling visiting US troops on rotation
from Oregon (which has de-criminalised much drug taking) that they can ignore
Australian laws.
Former mathematician Koster is a member of the Republic’s
most powerful political party. As
Governor of Bali, one of Indonesia’s 38 provinces, his words should carry
clout.
But he isn’t a national legislator (though he was for 14
years), legal academic, public prosecutor or top cop, positions which might
strengthen his assurance.
So when he
says ‘there’ll be no
checking on marital status … at any tourism accommodation,’ can foreign unmarrieds
who share the same bed rest easy? Maybe
not.
Koster suggests the police will
only sniff for locals, but no one will know till the laws are exercised three
years hence.
Much of the international
media has focused on the sexy bits, but Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono takes a drone view of the political
landscape:
‘The laws are a setback for
already declining religious freedom in Indonesia and could be misused to target
certain individuals.
“The danger of oppressive
laws is not that they’ll be broadly applied, it’s that they provide avenues for
selective enforcement, endangering
sexual, religious and ethnic minorities… providing an avenue for extortion.’
At a media conference the US ambassador
to Indonesia, Sung Kim shifted the debate to the boardroom, foreseeing a ‘negative impact on the investment climate.’
Speaking bluntly is risky
in a nation sensitive to outsiders’ opinions, as the UN resident coordinator in Jakarta, Valerie Julliand, discovered.
Her office stated several laws ‘contravene Indonesia's international legal obligations
with respect to human rights.
"Some
articles have the potential to criminalise journalistic work… Others would
discriminate against, or have a discriminatory impact on, women, girls, boys
and sexual minorities.
‘The
code could also affect reproductive and privacy rights and exacerbate
gender-based violence based on sexual orientation and identity.’
Ironically,
Indonesia has been a member of the UN Human Rights Council for the past two
years. Its role ends this month.
Indonesian academic
Moch Faisal Karim claimed his
country’s human rights advocacy at the
UN ‘is often inconsistent and half-hearted.’ He wrote
this before the new law so may escape censure.
The Foreign
Ministry summoned Julliand for a dressing down,
saying the UN should ‘have consulted with the government before airing its
misgivings.’
Sung Kim
didn’t get called to explain, but he’s been told to butt out by the country’s peak Islamic body the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (Islamic
Scholars’ Council).
Deputy Chair Anwar Abbas said the Ambassador’s
statement ‘had the quality of taking sides and a threatening tone. The US
appears to have an ambition of forcing or pressuring Indonesia to provide space
for LGBT practices and sex outside of marriage.
‘If the US insists on pushing through this position
and view, then the MUI explicitly declares: Go to hell with US aid and
investment which damages the nation's religion and culture.’
Then the cruncher dismaying those hoping that advancing humanity’s
universal needs could overtake insularity: ‘We want to live with our own
identity, not with the identity of other people or nations.’
Indonesia is constitutionally secular, but 88 per cent of the population
follows Islam. The new laws appear to be
appeasing ultra-conservatives hostile to ‘liberal Western values’, than
ensuring justice and protecting the rights of all.
Melbourne
University law Professor Tim Lindsey writes that many provisions are ‘dangerously vague and wide
in their scope … empower(ing) the state at the expense of citizens.
‘This deeply flawed new criminal code is likely to meet with
stiff opposition from lawyers and activists, including protests, even though
the new code bans ‘unannounced demonstrations.’ It’s inevitable it will end up
in the Constitutional Court’.
In the meantime best wear a wedding band in Bali, only talk
about the weather and keep the Governor’s number on speed dial.
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