‘Move forward, not backwards’: UN human rights chief warns Indonesia over LGBT crackdown, anti-gay sentiment
Parliament is set to pass a sweeping amendment to its penal code that could make same-sex relations and sex outside marriage illegal, sparking outrage from rights groups who say they amount to an unprecedented invasion of privacy
Indonesia must clamp down on rising intolerance against the LGBT community, the UN human rights chief warned on Wednesday, as the persecuted minority face a wave of arrests and parliament moves to ban gay sex.
Government officials, religious hardliners and influential Islamic groups have lined up to make anti-LGBT statements in public recently, while police have used a tough anti-pornography law to criminalise members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
“The hateful rhetoric against this community that is being cultivated seemingly for cynical political purposes will only deepen their suffering and create unnecessary divisions,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein told a press conference in Jakarta, as he wrapped up a three-day visit.
Since the fall of dictator Suharto in the late 1990s, Indonesia has become one of the region’s most progressive on human rights, he added.
“Indonesia has since 1998 managed to transition to democracy and couple it with strong economic growth,” he said.