Indonesian officials on Monday appeared to backtrack in an attempt to ally tourism fears. Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej dismissed the concerns, saying foreigners will not be prosecuted under the new law.
‘I want to emphasise for foreign tourists, please come to Indonesia because you will not be charged with this article,’ Hiariej told reporters.
He said extra-marital sex and cohabitation offences would only be prosecuted if a spouse, parent or child reported it, while adultery had already been illegal for years under the previous criminal code.
In the holiday hotspot of Bali, Governor Wayan Koster also tried to allay fears about the law, saying local authorities would not check the marital status of tourists.
He said in a statement that Bali would not make any ‘policy changes’ related to the new criminal code.
‘Bali is Bali as usual, which is comfortable and safe to be visited,’ Koster said.
‘There will be no checks on marital status upon check-in at any tourism accommodation… nor inspections by public officials or community groups.’
Wayan also denied what he said were ‘hoax’ reports of cancellations of flights and hotel room bookings, adding that data from travel agents, tour and accommodation operators, as well as airlines, showed the number of people set to visit Bali from December 2022 to March 2023 had increased.
But the new code is ‘totally counter-productive’ at a time when the economy and tourism were starting to recover from the pandemic, Maulana Yusran, deputy chief of Indonesia’s tourism industry board, said last week.
Andreas Harsono, a senior Human Rights Watch researcher in Indonesia, said last week that the code ‘contains oppressive and vague provisions that open the door to invasions of privacy and selective enforcement.’
The provisions ‘will enable the police to extort bribes, lawmakers to harass political opponents, and officials to jail ordinary bloggers,’ he said.
The new criminal code still needs to be approved by President Joko Widodo and will not come into force for three years.
Hiariej’s comments came as Indonesia summoned a United Nations official after the organisation expressed concerns over threats to civil liberties posed by the newly-ratified revisions to its criminal code, its foreign ministry said.
The U.N. said the revised laws could result in the erosion of press freedom, privacy and human rights in the world’s third-largest democracy.
Teuku Faizasyah, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said the ministry summoned the U.N. resident coordinator in Jakarta over the comment, saying the organisation should have consulted with the government before airing its misgivings.
‘They should have come to consult, just like other international representatives. We hope they do not hasten to express views, or when there’s not enough information.’
The U.N. official, Valerie Julliand, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters news agency.
Bali is the centre of tourism in Indonesia and the tourism association is targeting foreign arrivals on the predominately Hindu island to reach pre-pandemic levels of six million a year by 2025.
Decades in the making, legislators hailed the passage of the criminal code as a much-needed overhaul of a vestige of Dutch colonial rule.
Last week, a suicide bomber angered by the new criminal code, blew himself up at a police station on the main island of Java, killing one other person.
Agus Sujatno, 34, an Islamist militant and convicted bomb-maker who was released from prison last year, entered the police station in the city of Bandung on a motorbike and detonated a bomb as officers were lining up for morning assembly.
Detectives later found ‘dozens’ of white pieces of paper taped to the attacker’s motorbike protesting against the country’s controversial new criminal code that was passed on Tuesday.
