'Serious threat': Indonesia legal reform sparks rights challenges

ACTIVISTS are challenging Indonesia’s new criminal code, which outlaws sex outside marriage and the insulting of top officials, saying it threatens rights and gives authorities broad power with minimal oversight.

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The government has celebrated the new framework, which replaced the Dutch colonial-era criminal code on January 2, and insisted the overhaul was not seeking to quash freedoms.

But activists — mostly students — are trying to counter the sweeping legal changes, with some cases already before the nation’s highest courts.

The new laws pose a “serious threat” to human rights, said Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid.

“Civil liberties are increasingly threatened by widespread criminalisation, while the rights of suspects and vulnerable groups could be neglected,” he said.

Then-president Joko Widodo signed the changes into law three years ago, while a separate procedural law that President Prabowo Subianto ratified last month also came into effect on January 2.