Indonesian lawmakers unanimously passed a sweeping new criminal code on Tuesday that criminalizes sex outside marriage, as part of a tranche of changes that critics say threaten human rights and freedoms in the Southeast Asian country.
The new code, which also applies to foreign residents and tourists, bans cohabitation before marriage, apostasy, and provides punishments for insulting the president or expressing views counter to the national ideology.
“All have agreed to ratify the (draft changes) into law,” said lawmaker Bambang Wuryanto, who led the parliamentary commission in charge of revising the colonial-era code. “The old code belongs to Dutch heritage … and is no longer relevant.”
The world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, Indonesia has seen a rise in religious conservatism in recent years. Strict Islamic laws are already enforced in parts of the country, including the semi-autonomous Aceh province, where alcohol and gambling are banned. Public floggings also take place in the region for a range of offenses including homosexuality and adultery.
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The changes to the criminal code have not only alarmed human rights advocates, who warned of their potential to stifle personal freedoms, but also travel industry representatives – who worried about their potential effect on tourism.
In a news conference, Tuesday, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly said it wasn’t easy for a multicultural and multi-ethnic country to make a criminal code that “accommodates all interests.”
He said he hoped that Indonesians understood that lawmakers had done everything they could to accommodate “public aspiration,” and invited dissatisfied parties to submit a judicial review to the constitutional court.
In the lead up to Tuesday’s vote, rights groups and critics warned that the new code would “disproportionately impact women” and further curtail human rights and freedoms in the country of more than 270 million people.
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“What we’re witnessing is a huge setback to Indonesia’s hard-won progress in protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms after the 1998 revolution. This criminal code should have never been passed in the first place,” said Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia.
What’s in the criminal code?
The new criminal code runs to 200 pages and has been years in the making.
A previous draft was set to be passed in 2019 but the vote was postponed after thousands of protesters, mostly students, took to the streets demanding the government withdraw it.
In a televised address at the time, President Joko Widodo said he would delay the vote after “seriously considering feedback from different parties who feel objections on some substantial content of the criminal code.”
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Hamid from Amnesty noted there had been “no meaningful changes” enacted since 2019.
Under the version passed Tuesday, sex outside marriage carries a potential one-year prison term though there a restrictions on who can lodge a formal complaint. For example, the parents of children who are cohabitating before marriage have the authority to report them.
As well as introducing new offenses, the code also expands on existing laws and punishments. Blasphemy laws have increased from “one to six provisions” and can now lead to a maximum five-year prison sentence, according to a draft document.
Hamid said laws on insulting the country’s leaders and unsanctioned protests will have a “chilling effect” on free speech.
“The reinstatement of provisions banning insults to the president and vice president, the sitting government as well as state institutions would further create a palpable chilling effect on freedom of speech and criminalize legitimate criticisms,” he said.
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Human Rights Watch Indonesia Researcher Andreas Harsono said the laws are “a setback for already declining religious freedom in Indonesia,” warning they could be misused to target certain individuals.
“The danger of oppressive laws is not that they’ll be broadly applied, it’s that they provide avenue for selective enforcement,” he said.
Hadi Rahmat Purnama, from the University of Indonesia’s law faculty, said the laws would be implemented after a transitional period of three years.
Foreigners and tourists
The laws are expected to trouble the business community, especially those who regularly host and cater for foreign nationals and tourists.
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The island of Bali, for example, relies heavily on tourist revenue and is still recovering from the pandemic slowdown that kept travelers away.
Putu Winastra, chairman of the Association of the Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies (ASITA) in Bali, told CNN the laws would “make foreigners think twice” about visiting Indonesia.
“From our point of view as tourism industry players, this law will be very troublesome,” said Putu, who questioned how the laws would be policed.
“Should we ask (overseas unmarried couples) if they are married or not? Do tourist couples have to prove that they are married?” he asked.
Putu said the laws could be “counterproductive” to any efforts to entice tourists back to the island.
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“If these laws are really implemented later, tourists might be (subjected) to jail and this will harm tourism,” he said.
The Canadian actor, director, screenwriter and producer Xavier Dolan will be the President of the Un Certain Regard Jury of the 77th Festival de Cannes. He will be joined by French-Senegalese screenwriter and director Maïmouna Doucouré, Moroccan director, screenwriter and producer Asmae El Moudir, German-Luxembourg actress Vicky Krieps, and American film critic, director, and writer Todd McCarthy. They will be in charge of awarding prizes for the Un Certain Regard section, which showcases art and discovery films by young auteurs.
This year, 18 films have been selected, including 8 first films. The 2023 Un Certain Regard top prize went to director Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature How to Have Sex.
When the light breaks by Rúnar Rúnarsson will open the Un Certain Regard section on Wednesday May 15, 2024.
XAVIER DOLAN – President Actor, director, screenwriter, producer Canada
An actor since the age of four, Xavier Dolan directed and starred in his first feature film, I killed my mother, which was a big hit at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2009. This was followed by Heartbeats and Laurence Anyways, presented at the Festival de Cannes in 2010 and 2012 at Un Certain Regard, where they were enthusiastically received. In 2013, Tom at the Farm was screened at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize. With Mommy, he is awarded several prizes, including the Prix du Jury at the 2014 Festival de Cannes and the César for Best Foreign Film. Grand Prize winner at the 2016 Festival de Cannes with It’s only the end of the World, he returns to Competition with Matthias & Maxime in 2019. After a few notable roles with other filmmakers, such as his performance in Xavier Giannoli’s Lost Illusions in 2021, for which he was nominated for a César for Best Supporting Actor, in 2022 he directed the series The Night Logan woke up. Xavier Dolan was a member of the Jury in 2015, and now chairs the Un Certain Regard Jury.
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MAÏMOUNA DOUCOURÉ Screenwriter, director France, Senegal
Her first professional short film, Maman(s), was selected for nearly 200 festivals around the world and won more than 60 awards, including the Jury Prize at Sundance, the Best Film Award in Toronto and the 2017 César for Best Short Film. In 2019, Maïmouna Doucouré receives the Gold Fellowship Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures. Released in 2020, Cuties, her first feature film, wins the Best Director Award at Sundance and a Special Mention from the International Generation Jury in Berlin. The film’s lead actress, Fathia Youssouf, won the César for Best Actress. Her second feature-length film, Hawa, produced in 2022 with Prime Vidéo, was also presented in Toronto. Maïmouna Doucouré is currently working on her next feature film about the legendary Joséphine Baker.
ASMAE EL MOUDIR Director, screenwriter, producer Morocco
Asmae El Moudir studied cinema at the Moroccan University and at La Fémis in Paris. She has directed several award winning short films. She completed her Al Jazeera television documentary, The Postcard, in 2020. The Mother of all Lies is her first independent documentary feature premiered at the 2023 Festival de Cannes where it won the Un Certain Regard Directing Prize. The film also won the Golden Eye for Best Documentary. The film is screened at Toronto, Sundance, Melbourne, Busan, Karlovy Vary as well as many festivals around the world and won more than 25 awards. Asmae El Moudir is nominated for the PGA Award and the Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Doc. Most recently, she won the IDA Award (International Documentary Association) for Best Director. The Mother of All Lies was also shortlisted in the international features section of the Oscars 2024.
An international actress who works in French, English and German, Vicky Krieps has appeared in Joe Wright’s Hannah (2011), Philippe Claudel’s Before the Winter Chill(2013), Anton Corbijn’s A most wanted Man(2014), Ingo Haeb’s The Chambermaid Lynn(2015), Raoul Peck’s The Young Karl Marx(2017), and starred alongside Daniel Day Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread(2017). In 2021, she defended two films selected for the Festival de Cannes, Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island in Competition and Mathieu Amalric’s Hold me tight. The following year, she returned with two young German and Austrian directors in the Un Certain Regard section: Emily Atef’s More than Ever and Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage, which won her the Un Certain Regard Jury’s Best Actress Award in 2022. She will soon be seen in Viggo Mortensen’s The Dead Don’t Hurt and Hot Milkby Rebecca Lenkiewicz.
TODD MCCARTHY Film critic, director, writer United States
Todd McCarthy is a Cannes veteran – his first was in 1970 – who for decades covered the Festival for Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Among his books are the definitive biography “Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood”, “Kings of the Bs: Working Within the Hollywood System” and “Fast Women” about female race car drivers. He won an Emmy Award for his documentary Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of a Hollywood Genius and is currently working on a project set in Hollywood just after World War II.
Do LaB kicked off its return to Coachella Weekend Two on Friday, April 19 with a couple standout surprise performances and a full lineup of electronic and crossover talent. Check out highlights from the first day of Weekend Two at the Do LaB stage below.
Prolific French DJ and hitmaker DJ Snake performed a special hip-hop set as the headlining surprise guest of the night.
Versatile trap and hip-hop influenced fan favorite TroyBoi performed as the other Do LaB surprise set of the night.
Additional previously announced day one programming featured acts like Juelz, HoneyLiv, CocoRosie, Alleycvt, Yung Singh, and more.
Stay tuned for notifications on announcements, surprise sets, and more by visiting the link here. Set times for the remainder of the weekend can be found here, along with more general info on Do LaB in the press release here. Additional photo selects from each day can be found here (photographer name listed in file name for photo credits).
The Do LaB stage at Coachella provides a preview of the brand’s flagship boutique festival, Lightning in a Bottle. The five day Lightning in a Bottle experience fuses a top tier musical lineup, immersive art installations, cause-driven educational programming, and a variety of yoga and movement programming within a sprawling lakeside venue in beautiful Buena Vista Lake, California.
Taking place over Memorial Day Weekend on May 22-27, LIB 2024’s musical programming highlights include Skrillex, Labrinth, Lane 8, James Blake, M.I.A., Skream, Tycho, ISOxo, Tipper, Fatboy Slim, CloZee, Nora En Pure, Bob Moses, Honey Dijon, Damian Lazarus, and several more.
More info on LIB can be found on their website here and in the official press release here, along with the media application here.