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

By Ananda Teresia

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s parliament on Tuesday accepted a legal code that bans intercourse outdoors marriage with a punishment of as much as one 12 months in jail, a part of a raft of authorized modifications that critics say undermine civil liberties on the planet’s third-largest democracy.

The controversial new legal guidelines, which apply to Indonesians and foreigners alike, additionally embrace 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“The outdated code belongs to Dutch heritage… and is now not related now,” Bambang Wuryanto, head of the parliamentary fee answerable for revising the code advised lawmakers.

The approval comes whilst enterprise teams warned it might 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 legislation 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 signify a “large setback” in guaranteeing the retention of democratic freedoms after the autumn of authoritarian chief Suharto in 1998.