LGBT must be banned, like we banned communism and drug trafficking’. The secretary-general of the People’s Conscience Party, which is included in President Joko Widodo’s governing coalition, said that ‘being LGBT is an infectious and dangerous disease. The conservative Islamic newspaper R epublika ran the headline ‘LGBT poses serious threat to nation’. The furore prompted Indonesian politicians and religious leaders to weigh in on the debate in increasingly sensational terms. However, as individual people, they must be protected like any other citizen’.Ī primary reason for the subsequent national and international media furore was that Nasir’s statement was misreported as a call to ban all LGBT individuals from universities in Indonesia. The Speaker of the upper house of parliament added: ‘as a movement, the existence of LGBT must be opposed. The worry for Nasir and others was that LGBT would become visible in solidarity - no longer invisible individuals, but a community demanding rights and acceptance. The public backlash against this statement forced Nasir to declare that ‘e are not against LGBTs but the activity … the problem is when they are showing romance, kissing, and making love (in public)’. In January 2016, Indonesia’s Technology, Research and Higher Education Minister, Muhammad Nasir, declared that Indonesian universities must uphold standards of ‘values and morals’ and should not support organisations promoting LGBT activities. While there have always been concomitant tolerance and intolerance, events of early 2016 exhibited an unprecedented level of public animosity toward Indonesia’s LGBT community. Unlike Singapore and Malaysia, Indonesia never criminalised homosexuality and has been accommodating of transgender people.īut such ostensible acceptance should not obscure the everyday prejudice and harassment that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people face in Indonesia. Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the PacificĪuthor: Sharyn Graham Davies, Auckland University of TechnologyĬompared with its Asian near neighbours, Indonesia has long been tolerant of same-sex sexuality and transgenderism.
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