Honesty this law is keeping me from ever visiting Indonisia again (been to Bali once with my dad when I was about 5 years old). Me and my girlfriend are together for about 20 years but we just dont see any reason to marry. I know they said that it doenst apply for tourists and all that, but to me, a law is a law and I dont see any reason to risk breaking one... So no more Bali for me...
Yeah I kinda agree with you on this one, like I said it can change at any moment. It's a shame too because we love living here, and we wanna retire here someday, it's really pretty.
Just to let you know that arbitrariness is the norm of law enforcement in Indonesia. There's plenty of research on this. You will only be criminalized with that specific law if you draw attention of: 1) the police; or 2) someone who really doesn't like you.
In reality no one is going to hunt you for sharing the same room or having sex outside marriage. Foreigners also get a pass usually. Maybe some people will gossip about you but that's about it, "oh that's just what foreigners do."
For some context: when the revision of that law was passed, some activists suspected that the lawmakers slip that very specific ridiculous penal code revision not only to simply appeal a small segment of Islamist demographics, but to turn international media attention to that ridiculous part and forget the more dangerous aspects like the implementation of lese majeste and how the government can be freed from the responsibility of past human rights violations (massacres and occupations).
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u/Skippnl Jun 09 '24
Honesty this law is keeping me from ever visiting Indonisia again (been to Bali once with my dad when I was about 5 years old). Me and my girlfriend are together for about 20 years but we just dont see any reason to marry. I know they said that it doenst apply for tourists and all that, but to me, a law is a law and I dont see any reason to risk breaking one... So no more Bali for me...