Indonesia urged to release nine men arrested and charged for ‘organising gay party’

Prosecution ‘fits into a disturbing pattern’ of authorities using law ‘as weapon against LGBT people’

Men accused of organising a gay party in Jakarta are piled into a police car following a press conference (AP)

Human rights activists have urged the Indonesian government to intervene to stop the prosecution of nine men arrested and  accused with organising a gay party in Jakarta.

The defendants, who were among 56 men detained during a police raid on the event at a hotel last week, have been charged with “facilitating obscene acts” in a case which campaigners said highlights a growing threat to LGBT+ people in the country.  

Forty-seven men were released, but the other nine were charged under a pornography law which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a fine.

“This latest raid fits into a disturbing pattern of Indonesian authorities using the pornography law as a weapon to target LGBT people,” said Kyle Knight, senior LGBT+ rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government has been inciting hostility toward LGBT people for several years, and there is no accountability for abuses such as police raids on private spaces.”

Amnesty International also called for the release of the men, who were arrested on 1 September.

Usman Hamid, the organisation’s executive director, said: “There is no legal justification for criminalising the behaviour these men are accused of. Such a gathering would pose no threat to anyone. The authorities are being discriminatory and violating the human rights to privacy and family life, freedom of expression, and the freedom of assembly and association.”

Homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, apart from in conservative Aceh province. However, no laws protect LBGT+ from discrimination and the country's gay and lesbian community has recently come under siege.

Police have set up a special task force to investigate homosexual activity. In February, members of the country’s House of Representatives proposed a bill that would define homosexuality as deviant and require LGBT+ to report to authorities for “rehabilitation”.

According to a police report on last week’s raid in Jakarta, a 31-officer unit had been monitoring the private gathering before the arrests.

The men were charged under 2008 laws which prohibit the “creation, dissemination or broadcasting of pornography containing deviant sexual intercourse,” a term which it defines as including sex with corpses, sex with animals, oral sex, anal sex, and gay sex.

“The combination of exploiting the discriminatory pornography law and a lack of accountability for police misconduct has proved to be both dangerous and durable,” Mr Knight said. “So long as the government permits police raids on private gatherings under a discriminatory law, it will fail to curb anti-LGBT harassment and intimidation.”

Human Rights Watch said authorities must “halt arbitrary raids on private spaces, investigate those that have taken place, and punish those who took part in the raids and those responsible in their chain of command”.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has previously called on Indonesian authorities to release people detained on the basis of their sexual orientation and combat anti-gay stigma in the country.