The report, based on interviews with 70 members of the community and LGBT rights activists across the country, alleges that the government has used hateful rhetoric, discriminatory edicts, and the use of force to repress peaceful gatherings.
Advertisement
Though Indonesia’s LGBT community has long faced violence at the hands of Islamist vigilantes, they were dealt a swift blow earlier this year in what HRW is describing as an “immediate deterioration of their rights”.
The Indonesian government has not responded to an urgent call to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, Kyle Knight, a researcher at rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW), has said.
“Rights of citizens like going to school and getting an ID card are protected, but there is no room in Indonesia for the proliferation of the LGBT movement”, presidential spokesman Johan Budi told AFP.
Officials’ biased and untrue statements about LGBT people provided social sanction for harassment and violence against LGBT Indonesians, and even death threats by militant Islamists. “I feel like a dog”, says one man quoted in the HRW report.
Indonesia’s largest Muslim group, Nahdlatul Ulama, in February described gay lifestyles as perverted and a desecration of human dignity.
Some of Indonesia’s LGBT activists, however, saw a silver lining to the controversy.
It’s been a particularly hard year for LGBT rights in Indonesia – back in January, the country’s Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir said that gay students showing affection should be banned from university.
The comments come as Human Rights Watch publishes a shocking report on life for LGBT people in Indonesia, revealing that there has been an “outpouring of intolerance” and hate crime since January.
“They did not know what I was doing before, they are more aware now although they tried to persuade me to leave my job. Many parents did not realize there are so many LGBT people here until then”, Korbarri added.
“It put things on the table, whether you like it or not, this is a real issue and it gets talked about”, said Oetomo, an academic and the founder of LGBT rights group, GAYa NUSANTARA.
Advertisement
Oetomo however sounded a note of caution, pointing to a petition lodged with Indonesia’s top court by anti-LGBT groups to criminalize consensual sex between adults of the same gender.
