LGBT Individuals, Moral Policing and Risks of Discrimination in Indonesia (2025)

Photo: Indonesia - Luigi Guarino

Indonesia decriminalises consensual same-sex conduct between adults at the national level, but several provinces and municipalities — including Aceh province and South Sumatra — have enacted local regulations that criminalise homosexuality under Islamic law (qanun). The national Criminal Code revised in 2022 contains provisions that, while not explicitly targeting same-sex conduct, criminalise cohabitation outside marriage in ways that could be applied to same-sex couples. LGBT Indonesians face pervasive social discrimination, police harassment, mob violence, and a growing tide of religiously motivated moral policing. This report draws on the Arus Pelangi organisation, Human Rights Watch, ILGA, and OHCHR Indonesia.

Aceh: Sharia-Based Criminalisation

Aceh province operates under a unique system of Islamic law (qanun jinayat) that explicitly criminalises sexual conduct between men and between women. The punishment is a maximum of 100 lashes of the cane, administered in public. Multiple public canings of gay men and transgender women have been documented since 2018, carried out before crowds of witnesses. The legality of Aceh's qanun under Indonesia's national constitution has been challenged but the Constitutional Court has declined to strike down the provincial law.[1]

Nationwide Raids and Moral Policing

Even outside Aceh, LGBT Indonesians face systematic police raids on private gatherings, nightclubs, and community spaces under public morality ordinances and pornography laws. Human Rights Watch documented a significant increase in such raids from 2016 — coinciding with intensified political rhetoric against LGBT people by government officials, religious leaders, and the media. Individuals detained in raids are routinely subjected to forced medical examinations, public identification, and "counselling" aimed at changing their sexual orientation.[2]

LGBT Indonesians are caught between a national government that refuses to protect them and local authorities that actively persecute them. The state does not merely fail to protect — in many cases it leads the attack.
Human Rights Watch, "These Political Games Ruin Our Lives": Indonesia's LGBT People, 2022

2022 Criminal Code Revision

Indonesia's revised Criminal Code — passed in 2022 and coming into force in 2025 — contains Article 413, which criminalises "fornication" (zina) between unmarried individuals of any gender combination. While the provision targets unmarried cohabitation broadly, it has been widely interpreted as applicable to same-sex couples and used by prosecutors in trial runs in conservative jurisdictions. The revision also expands provisions against "indecency" that have historically been applied to transgender women and gay men in police raids.[3]