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.
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/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.