ASEAN Beat

What’s Wrong With Gay Rights in Indonesia and ASEAN?

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ASEAN Beat

What’s Wrong With Gay Rights in Indonesia and ASEAN?

A recent incident exposes the country’s – and the region’s – lingering challenges on this front.

Two “alleged gay men” have become the focus of international attention after being arrested in the semi-autonomous Aceh province in Muslim-majority Indonesia where controversial new Islamic bylaws are being enforced. The immediate focus of the incident is the inhumanity of the fact that the two face 100 lashes for being gay. But the incident also highlights what is wrong with LGBT rights and tolerance more generally – both in Indonesia and in some of its other Southeast Asian neighbors as well.

The men, aged 20 and 24, were apparently caught in the act in the privacy of a home amid a raid by vigilantes, and a citizen’s arrest followed. A widely-circulated video shows a distressed man speaking into a mobile phone: “Brother, please, help me, help me. We are caught.” He went on to plead for his parents’ intervention.

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