‘What is wrong with Indonesia?’: trolls flood Thai couple’s gay wedding photos with death threats, ‘videos of slaughter’ in cross-cultural flame war

Within days of Suriya Koedsang uploading pictures of his same-sex Thai wedding to Facebook, they were being targeted by Indonesian online mobs

The hateful comments quickly snowballed into death threats against the couple and their families – even the wedding photographer

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Suriya Koedsang pictured with his husband Bas at their wedding, in a photo that was uploaded to Facebook. Photo: Facebook

Published: 8:20pm, 16 Apr 2021Updated: 8:20pm, 16 Apr 2021

When Suriya Koedsang uploaded photos of his wedding to Facebook on April 4, the 28-year-old Thai never could have imagined the hate his heartwarming post would soon receive from online trolls in Indonesia.

Within days, the pictures of Koedsang and his husband Bas’ April 3 marriage ceremony began attracting homophobic comments, ranging from rants about how homosexuality is “a sin” according to Islam, to posts listing various Indonesian words for the male reproductive organ.

As of Friday, the post had attracted more than 469,000 comments and been shared some 40,000 times.

Not all the messages were negative, however – the couple’s fellow Thais were quick to jump to their defence, creating something of a cross-cultural face-off in the comments section.

“So weird. They got married in Thailand but Indonesians have a problem with that. Why? Did they [get] married in your country? Why [do] you interfere?” wrote one Thai user named Nattaworada Imsamran, in an example of the messages of support the couple received.

By April 11, however, the negative comments had snowballed into death threats that were not only directed at the couple, but also Koedsang’s “parents, relatives, including the photographer”, he wrote in a follow-up Facebook post.