Indonesia set to penalise sex outside marriage, live-ins in overhaul criminal code

Jakarta: Senior authorities have announced that Indonesia is set to pass significant revisions to its criminal code on Tuesday. Critics fear that this legal reform could roll back the Southeast Asian country’s hard-won democratic freedoms and police morality. The most controversial changes to the code include those that would penalise sex outside of marriage with up to a year in prison, forbid cohabitation between unmarried couples, criminalise insulting the president, and express opinions at odds with the Pancasila, the country’s ideology. Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, and Bambang Wuryanto, the chairman of the parliamentary panel in charge of the revision, informed Reuters on Monday that a plenary session of parliament would be held on Tuesday to ratify the revised law. The draft code has been approved by both the government and the House of Representatives, removing a barrier to its passage. The country’s long-awaited overhaul of its penal code from the colonial era has recently been met with large-scale protests, although this year’s response has been much more subdued. In September 2019, Parliament was supposed to ratify a draught new code, but protests around the country over alleged dangers to civil liberties prevented that from happening. Since then, lawmakers in the third-largest democracy in the world have softened some of the most divisive provisions. For instance, revised articles on cohabitation and extramarital sex now specify that only close family members—a spouse, parent, or child—may file such complaints, while the president alone may file a complaint for insulting him. The new code will take into effect three years after it is ratified while the government and other institutions draft the necessary implementing regulations. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.