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Ridwan Kamil, the mayor of Bandung ordered the FPI to remove the banners, but during a press meeting at his residence on January 26, said that LGBT people should not express their identities on social media or they risked government censorship.
As one participant told Human Rights Watch:. There were three men from the FPI and three police officers—I met them in the lobby of the hotel the seminar was on the 5 th floor. The police asked us what we were doing so I walked them through the training module—then they asked us to stop.
You have to stop. On February 7 in Surabaya, East Java province, health organizations and an entertainment company organized an HIV testing awareness event. The police informed organizers that they would not be able to protect the event from attacks by extremist groups. Fridays are fearful for us now because [some] Imams invoke anti-LGBT sentiment during their sermons then radical groups leave prayers hungry to attack.
Fridays used to mean it was the weekend coming, but now it means sermons telling people to hate us. In February and March Human Rights Watch conducted more than 50 interviews with sexual and gender minorities and LGBT human rights defenders across Indonesia about the impact of the outpouring of anti-LGBT sentiment in , which ranged from outright threats to subtler harassment. LGBT human rights activists and employees of NGOs that provide services to LGBT people told Human Rights Watch that they had historically faced sporadic harassment and generally had little confidence in reporting cases to authorities, [71] but that conditions worsened significantly in early The uptick in anti-LGBT rhetoric that began in January coincided with increased intimidation and threatening events—some of which were specifically linked to the heated public discourse.
Once Nasir made his statement, I got two types of calls—one was from people threatening me because of my public profile as an openly gay student and activist, and the other type was from friends who said all of the sudden they were getting random requests for my home address.
A transgender HIV outreach worker in South Sulawesi said that when a group of 20 men claiming to be from a fundamentalist group threatened her in January for handing out condoms at a popular gathering place for waria, it was the first time she had ever experienced such harassment in over a decade of working there. The rally represented years of coalition building between LGBT groups and allies.
All were subject to attacks by religious extremists. And police failed to adequately protect them. This formed the basis for solidarity and coalition building, over time. Demonstrators planned to gather in the afternoon in a downtown area; for their safety, they only announced the location a few days in advance, and gave notice to the police on the day of the event. But word of the event leaked on social media, and militant Islamist groups launched a campaign of threats and intimidation.
Said one human rights lawyer who visited the police station at 1 p. According to witnesses and participants Human Rights Watch interviewed, approximately people assembled around 3 p. Roughly police arrived at the scene. As demonstrators attempted to step forward, police pushed them back. Two women on the front lines told Human Rights Watch that some police officers grabbed their breasts and used homophobic slurs; men reported that some police had jabbed at their genitals with batons in an effort to make them stop the demonstration.
Footage broadcast on Indonesian television news networks shows uniformed police grabbing demonstrators, dragging them into a circle of other officers, and kicking them on the ground. The crowd relented under the police pressure and dissipated as the sun went down. Monitors from human rights organizations helped by checking the surrounding area and ensuring participants could take certain roads home—that there were not people waiting to attack them.
For the next week, activists who had participated in the demonstration received calls from unknown sources demanding to know who the organizers were. After the demonstration, I was told that police were at our [NGO] office the next day—so I have stayed in my home to avoid any contact with them. According to activists, in the early morning of February 24, just hours after the crackdown on the LGBT solidarity demonstration, a group of seven unidentified men violently attacked a waria while she was walking home in downtown Yogyakarta. Shinta, 54 years old, started the pesantren in on a piece of property owned by her family.
She told her family about her waria identity when she was 18, and began immediately wearing the jilbab Muslim headscarf and female clothing. Shinta went immediately to the police station to request protection. At a. Thirty minutes later a group from FJI arrived and demanded Shinta close the pesantren.
By 10 a. Shinta, accompanied by LBH, went to the police station to file a report on the harassment. You should treat them like a good Javanese person welcomes guests. On the evening of February 24, Shinta along with three other warias from the pesantren arrived on time for the 8 p. At the meeting, Shinta spoke first—telling the crowd her own story, and explaining how Islamic principles apply to waria. Shinta was devastated, but for her safety and to protect her constituents, she decided to abide by the popular decision.
The closure dealt a significant blow to the marginalized waria community. I feel so lost now. The government and extremist groups play their political games and control our lives—these political games ruin our lives. Only God knows who we really are in our souls. I feel like a dog. Police and government should protect us—not participate in this.
The newfound volatility in meant visibility was an extreme risk. Activists rushed to conceal their own identities and those of their constituents; individuals who had divulged their sexual orientation or gender identity to family or community members experienced increased harassment in private, and some relocated as a security measure. In one instance a lesbian couple was harassed in their home.
Human Rights Watch interviewed three people in Medan who explained what happened. In mid-February, a group of men from an unidentified religious group intimidated the couple who shared a rented room.
After issuing further insults and threats, the men left. The activists discussed the incident with human rights NGOs in Medan later that week, but were advised not to report it to police for fear of provoking the police against them. A waria in South Sulawesi told Human Rights Watch that on February 15, , a group of unidentified men threw stones at waria at a public space in a city in South Sulawesi that was popular for informal gatherings among waria.
Nearly all of the LGBT people Human Rights Watch interviewed described intensified harassment in their communities, including in places and situations where they had historically felt safe and supported.
And for young lesbians, that means forced early marriage to men. However that has changed. The increasingly heated anti-LGBT public discourse gave people both a new vitriolic vocabulary and the social sanction to deploy it. Since the chorus of anti-LGBT rhetoric she no longer feels protected.
Some individuals told Human Rights Watch that the hostility has made them increasingly afraid and thus discrete about how they appear and even what they talk about in public. No reason to draw attention to ourselves as the debate heats up. But it was not the only impact. Two government-appointed commissions issued misinformed and discriminatory statements, while some religious and professional associations called for criminalization of LGBT lives and LGBT-related human rights activism.
Government agencies with mandates relevant to rights protection and promotion could have reacted to oppose such developments, but remained silent. On February 16, Dr. On March 24, Dr. He said:. During a meeting with Human Rights Watch on April 12, however, the minister denied any knowledge of Dr. International mental health bodies and a growing number of national mental health professional associations around the world have developed non-discrimination policies with regard to treatment for LGBT people.
There is no sound scientific evidence that innate sexual orientation can be changed. Furthermore, so-called treatments of homosexuality can create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish, and they can be potentially harmful.
Notable theatre, dance, and drama troupe such as Teater Koma are famous as it often portrays social and political satire of Indonesian society. Global Business Guide Indonesia. Hi there, You've done a fantastic job. At the meeting, Shinta spoke first—telling the crowd her own story, and explaining how Islamic principles apply to waria. Visit our latest post-op transsexual members who signup for free shipping and women medan.
Affirmation of these beliefs by mental health officials had an almost immediate negative impact. As an activist in Makassar told Human Rights Watch:.
The law does not clarify who and what criteria would be used to determine competence. In a report, Human Rights Watch documented hundreds of cases of people with psychosocial disabilities in Indonesia being shackled or held in forced seclusion against their will in government-run facilities. It will mean that they are both creating hateful information about us, and blocking even our own access to information about ourselves.
The [LGBT movement] is a potential threat to the marriage law in Indonesia that does not accept same-sex marriage. Claiming over 50 million members, the NU has, since its establishment in , developed into an unparalleled civil, political, and religious force in Indonesia. It operates formal governance structures at province, district, subdistrict, and village levels; runs thousands of pesantren , or Islamic boarding schools; and oversees institutes in fields including healthcare, education, economics, and law.
For example, it has failed to support the Ahmadiyah, a persecuted religious minority, and its political sway was viewed as an influential factor in the anti-Ahmadiyah decree issued by the government in The NU represents a guiding force in not only religious practice, but also civil society activism, socioeconomic development, and policymaking; as such it inhabits a unique platform from which to disseminate its stated ideology of tolerance and social justice—or, as its statement on LGBT people and activism on February 22 indicated, the reverse.
As explained above, NU holds considerable political sway in Indonesia. Its operational capacities have been recognized by the international community. The construal is particularly disturbing given the appalling conditions that many people with mental health conditions in Indonesia face. In the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published a guide summarizing some of the core legal obligations of states with respect to protecting the human rights of LGBT people. Indonesia is a party to several key human rights treaties and protocols setting forth many of these obligations.
In upholding the rights to life and to security and freedom from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICCPR obligates Indonesia to protect all persons within its territory or jurisdiction, including members of marginalized groups, from violence. States have the responsibility to investigate and prosecute violence, whether by state or non-state actors.
In order to uphold its obligations under the ICCPR and CEDAW, Indonesia should take steps to more effectively prevent and more consistently investigate and punish attacks on members of the LGBT community in particular those motivated by hostility to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Indonesia should ensure that LGBT people can exercise their right to peaceful assembly in safety and hold accountable police officers who refuse to protect gatherings of LGBT people from attacks regardless of whether police permission for the gathering has been given.
Censorship is also contrary to article 28 of the Indonesian constitution. For LGBT people and people questioning their gender and sexuality, including children, accurate information about sexual orientation and gender identity is vital to a healthy sense of self, the promotion of understanding among peers, and the enjoyment of the rights such as the right to health. Non-discrimination; b. The best interests of the child; c. The right to life, continuity of life and to develop; d.
Respect for the opinions of children. The right to access information, set forth in article 19 of the ICCPR, is interconnected with other rights, including the right to health. The right to information includes information about sexual orientation and gender identity. Censoring information about LGBT lives can have harsh consequences, including by fostering stigma that can drive violence, abuse, and poor mental health outcomes. The government needs to realize we are not being provocative or asking for same-sex marriage, we are asking for very basic freedoms, privacy, and safety. Flora and fauna on the west of the line are generally Asian, while east from Lombok they are increasingly Australian until the tipping point at the Weber Line.

In his book, The Malay Archipelago , Wallace described numerous species unique to the area. Indonesia's large and growing population and rapid industrialisation present serious environmental issues.