蜜芽传媒

Indonesia's parliament has approved new laws that criminalise sex outside marriage with a threat of imprisonment for up to a year. However, punishments would only take effect if an act of pre-marital sex was reported to the authorities by a close family member.

Andreas Harsono is a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch in Indonesia. He told Newsday: 鈥淚ndonesia has seen the production of more than 700 discriminatory regulations made against women, religious minorities as well as LGBTQI individuals, so that is the background of this criminal code. Many conservatives see that this criminal code is called the crown jewel of what they have been trying to introduce over the last two decades鈥� The danger of oppressive laws like this is not that they will be broadly applied. It is that they provide an avenue for selective enforcement.鈥�

(Picture: A couple hold hands as they walk on a sidewalk in Jakarta, Indonesia. Credit: Mast Irham / EPA.)