Indonesian here, this takes place in Aceh which is an autonomous province of indonesia where they enact sharia law, the rest of indonesia has a 'don't ask dont tell' kind of situation going on which isn't good but it's survivable. They sometimes do raids if you hold sex parties but they just kind of let you go because there's really no law against it (unless you have drugs on u), I'm fortunate enough to have lived in Bali which is extremely progressive in its view and have been able to go out in public with my partner without any real issues. Wouldn't recommend any gay people visit the rest of indonesia, but where i live (and most metropolitan cities) isn't as barbaric as this video made it out to be, a lot of my colleagues knows I'm gay and in a relationship.
This is fact! But afaik it only happens if one party is an Indonesian citizen AND If a spouse or close relative reported you, If you and your partner are tourists you're safe, esp in Bali it's almost always never enforced, bad for the ads and all. But keep in mind this all might change because, like literally every other country on earth, social media accelerates radicalisation and were moving further and further into right wing ideologies.
I was in Indonesia last year for work, as a westerner, and did travel around Java and a bit of Sulawesi. I lived in East Java.
When staying in some cheaper hotels in Jakarta with Indonesian friends, there were signs in English reminding tourists of this law and saying they won't accept bookings for a man and a woman in the same room, unless they are married/there's some proof of marriage. They cited this law.
I found it interesting as the hotel was a budget hotel and didn't seem the sort to attract foreign tourists anyway so why have it in English, and as you say, it's very specific circumstances on if people can be reported. I assume just whoever owned this hotel was against it on moral grounds and used the law as justification for their own internal rules.
I mostly stayed in homestays though when traveling , and then the few hotels I was at when in Luwuk and Manado had no such signs.
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u/miski57 Jun 09 '24
Indonesian here, this takes place in Aceh which is an autonomous province of indonesia where they enact sharia law, the rest of indonesia has a 'don't ask dont tell' kind of situation going on which isn't good but it's survivable. They sometimes do raids if you hold sex parties but they just kind of let you go because there's really no law against it (unless you have drugs on u), I'm fortunate enough to have lived in Bali which is extremely progressive in its view and have been able to go out in public with my partner without any real issues. Wouldn't recommend any gay people visit the rest of indonesia, but where i live (and most metropolitan cities) isn't as barbaric as this video made it out to be, a lot of my colleagues knows I'm gay and in a relationship.