10 men jailed for having gay sex
Indonesian authorities have arrested (FERNANDO/AFP/Getty)
10 men have been jailed in Indonesia for having gay sex.
A court in North Jakarta sentenced the men to two years in prison each for participating in a so-called gay sex party.
The convicted men were among the 141 arrested in the capital of Jakarta in May during a police raid on a sauna and gym.
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Court documents stated that the defendants were “proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt of displaying nudity and sexual exploitation collectively in public,” according to AFP.
As well as jail time, the defendants were also handed fines of £55,000.
At the time of the arrest, Jakarta police spokesman Raden Argo Yuwono said: “There were gay people who were caught strip-teasing and masturbating in the scene.”
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The ten men were found guilty last week under the country’s 2008 anti-pornography law, and sentenced today.
Andreas Harsono, a Human Rights Watch researcher in Jakarta, said: “It is an abuse of these gay men’s rights.
“It is not a crime, they did not hurt anyone.”
The men were found guilty on the same day that the country’s Supreme Court blocked a measure to ban gay sex.
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Jakarta’s Community Legal Aid Institute, a pro-LGBT group, said this constituted ironic timing.
“While the Constitutional Court said social norms should not be addressed using law enforcement, the North Jakarta court sentenced these people using such a problematic law,” its director Ricky Gunawan pointed out.
Indonesia is officially a secular country where gay sex is legal, apart from in Aceh, where Shariah law is in effect.
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But through the 2008 legislation, the government has been repeatedly targeted LGBT people, especially gay men.
58 people were arrested in October under the law during a raid on a sauna.
The police action was the latest in a string of mass arrests in the country, where the LGBT community appears to be coming under increasing pressure and persecution from authorities.
A man is whipped for homosexuality in Aceh (Getty)
Last month, four men were arrested for “spreading gay pictures,” a crime for which they could face up to 16 years in prison.
And in Aceh, the only province in the Muslim-majority country to have Shariah law, the situation is even worse for LGBT people.
In May, two men in the region were given 83 lashes each for having sex with each other.
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The men were informed on by their neighbour, who took video footage.
The video showed vigilantes kicking, slapping and insulting the men, according to Agence France-Presse.
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Anti-LGBT discrimination is said to be costing Indonesia as much as $12 billion every year, according to a recent study.
The losses are a result of barriers to employment, education, healthcare, as well as “physical, psychological, sexual, economic and cultural violence” suffered by LGBT citizens.
