Indonesia parliament ratifies legal code that bans intercourse exterior marriage By Reuters

By Ananda Teresia

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s parliament on Tuesday accredited a legal code that bans intercourse exterior marriage with a punishment of as much as one yr in jail, a part of a raft of authorized adjustments that critics say undermine civil liberties on this planet’s third-largest democracy.

The controversial new legal guidelines, which apply to Indonesians and foreigners alike, additionally embody a ban on insulting the president or state establishments and expressing views counter to state ideology.

Legislators hailed the passage of the legal code that the Southeast Asian nation has been discussing revising since declaring independence from the Dutch.

“The previous code belongs to Dutch heritage… and is now not related now,” Bambang Wuryanto, head of the parliamentary fee accountable for revising the code informed lawmakers.

The approval comes whilst enterprise teams warned it may hurt Indonesia’s picture as a tourism and funding vacation spot.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, has seen an increase in non secular conservatism lately with authorized specialists suggesting the brand new legal guidelines round morality, and a separate article on customary regulation will reinforce discriminatory and sharia-inspired bylaws on the native degree.

Opponents of the invoice have highlighted articles they are saying are socially regressive, will curb free speech and characterize a “large setback” in making certain the retention of democratic freedoms after the autumn of authoritarian chief Suharto in 1998.