Indonesia’s Parliament passed a long-awaited and controversial revision of its penal code Tuesday that criminalizes extramarital sex for citizens and visiting foreigners alike.
After ratification, the new criminal code must be signed by the president, according to Deputy Minister of Law and Human Rights Edward Hiariej. The criminal code will not apply immediately.
He said the new law “has a lot of implementing regulations that must be worked out, so it’s impossible in one year,” but takes a maximum of three years to transition from the old code to the new one.
A copy of the amended criminal code obtained by The Associated Press includes several revised articles that make sex outside marriage punishable by a year in jail and cohabitation by six months, but adultery charges must be based on police reports lodged by their spouse, parents or children.
It also says the promotion of contraception and religious blasphemy are illegal, and it restores a ban on insulting a sitting president and vice president, state institutions and national ideology. Insults to a sitting president must be reported by the president and can lead to up to three years in jail.
Hiariej said the government provided “the strictest possible explanation that distinguishes between insults and criticism.”
The code maintains that abortion is a crime, but it adds exceptions for women with life-threatening medical conditions and for rape, provided that the fetus is less than 12 weeks old, in line with what is already regulated in the 2004 Medical Practice Law.
Rights groups criticized some of the revisions as overly broad or vague and warned that rushing them into the new criminal code could penalize normal activities and threaten freedom of expression and privacy rights.
However, some advocates hailed it as a victory for the country’s LGBTQ minority. Lawmakers during a fierce deliberation session eventually agreed to repeal an article proposed by Islamic groups that would have made gay sex illegal.
The code would also preserve the death penalty within the criminal justice system despite calls from the National Commission on Human Rights and other groups to abolish capital punishment, as dozens of other countries have done.
The penal code had languished for decades while legislators in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation struggled with how to adapt its native culture and norms to the criminal code, a living legacy of the Dutch colonial administration.
