June 1, 2017

INDONESIA: Police Raid Gay Sauna, Arrested 141 Men. They Face Up To 10 Years In Prison. Islamic Shariah Court Sentenced Gay Couple To 85 Lashes In Public Caning.

The Star
written by AP staff
Monday May 22, 2017

JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Indonesian police detained dozens of men including several foreigners in a weekend raid on a gay sauna in the capital, another sign of growing hostility to homosexuality in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Police spokesperson Argo Yuwono said 141 men were detained for questioning in the raid Sunday evening on the gym and sauna in north Jakarta. Police say the sauna was the venue for a sex party promoted as “The Wild One.”

Homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, but police said the country’s pornography laws had been violated. Ten people will be charged, police said, including the sauna’s owner, several staff including strippers, a gym trainer, receptionist and security guard, and two visitors to the club who allegedly performed oral sex. If found guilty, they face penalties of up to 10 years in prison and fines.

As media waited for a police news conference on Monday afternoon, some of the arrested men were put on display, their faces covered by black ski masks. Last month, police in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, arrested 14 men at what they alleged was a sex party and forced them to have HIV tests.

A coalition of legal aid and criminal justice reform groups condemned the raid and “arbitrary” arrests. It said police further violated the rights of those arrested by photographing them naked and facilitating the spread of those images on social media.

The group, which is providing legal representation, said in a statement that some of the men were brought to a police station in north Jakarta naked, and that others were stripped at the station.

North Jakarta chief police detective Nasriadi, who goes by one name, said four foreigners were caught in the raid — two men from Malaysia, one Singaporean and one UK man. They are still being questioned as witnesses, he said.

Indonesia’s low-profile LGBT community has been increasingly under siege in the past year. Prejudice has been fanned by stridently anti-gay comments from Cabinet ministers and other high-profile Indonesians.

Last week, a Shariah court in the conservative province of Aceh sentenced two men to public caning for gay sex. Vigilantes broke into the couple’s rented accommodation to film them having sex and handed them over to Shariah police. The court sentenced the men, aged 20 and 23, to 85 lashes each, sparking condemnation from rights groups.

Aceh is the only province in Indonesia to practice Shariah law, though some areas have adopted Shariah-style bylaws.
The Star
written by Stephen Wright, AP
Wednesday May 17, 2017

BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA — An Islamic Shariah court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province has sentenced two gay men to public caning for the first time, further undermining the country’s moderate image after a top Christian politician was imprisoned for blasphemy.

The court, whose sentencing Wednesday coincided with International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, said the men, aged 20 and 23, would each receive 85 lashes for having sexual relations. One of the men wept as his sentence was read out and pleaded for leniency.

The chief prosecutor, Gulmaini, who goes by one name, said they will be caned next week, before the holy Muslim month of Ramadan starts about May 25.

The couple was arrested in late March after neighbourhood vigilantes in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, suspected them of being gay and broke into their rented room to catch them having sex. Cellphone video that circulated online and formed part of the evidence shows one of the men naked and visibly distressed as he apparently calls for help on his cellphone. The second man is repeatedly pushed by another man who is preventing the couple from leaving the room.

The lead judge, Khairil Jamal, said the men were “legally and convincingly proven to have committed gay sex.”

He said the three-judge panel decided against imposing the maximum sentence of 100 lashes because the men were polite in court, co-operated with authorities and had no previous convictions.

“As Muslims, the defendants should uphold the Shariah law that prevails in Aceh,” Jamal said.

International human rights groups described the treatment of the men as abusive and humiliating and called for their immediate release.

“Every human being has a right to privacy, a right to enter consensual relations, and a right to physical protection,” Amnesty International’s deputy director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Josef Benedict, said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch said in April that public caning would constitute torture under international law.

“The prosecution is very harsh. The verdict is harsher,” said Andreas Harsono, Indonesia researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It shows the increasingly conservative judiciary in Indonesia.”

Prosecutors said the men had waived their right to defence lawyers. It was not clear why, but guilty verdicts are certain in most cases that reach the Shariah court.

Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia allowed to practice Shariah law, which was a concession made by the national government in 2006 to end a war with separatists, but other some other areas have introduced Shariah-style bylaws.

Aceh implemented an expansion of Islamic bylaws and criminal code two years ago that extended Shariah law to the province’s non-Muslims and allows up to 100 lashes for morality offences including gay sex and sex between unmarried people.

Human Rights Watch says the Aceh laws violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Indonesia ratified in 2005.

Caning is also a punishment in Aceh for gambling, drinking alcohol, women who wear tight clothes and men who skip Friday prayers. More than 300 people were caned for such offences last year.

Homosexuality is not illegal elsewhere in Indonesia but a case before the country’s top court is seeking to criminalize gay sex and sex outside marriage.

Indonesia’s reputation for practicing a moderate form of Islam has been battered in the past year due to attacks on religious minorities, a surge in persecution of gays and a polarizing election campaign for governor of the capital, Jakarta, that highlighted the growing strength of hard-line Islamic groups.

Earlier this month, the outgoing Jakarta governor, a minority Christian, was sentenced to two years in prison for campaign comments deemed as blaspheming the Qur’an.

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