Indonesia's parliament is expected to pass a new criminal code this month that will penalise sex outside marriage with a punishment of up to one year in jail, officials have confirmed.
The legislative overhaul will also ban insulting the president or state institutions and expressing any views counter to Indonesia's state ideology. Cohabitation before marriage is also banned.
Bambang Wuryanto, a lawmaker involved in the draft, said the new code could be passed by as early as next week. A previous draft of the code was set to be passed in 2019 but sparked nationwide protests. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated at the time against a raft of laws, especially those seen to regulate morality and free speech, which they said would curtail civil liberties.
The criminalisation of abortion, with the exception of rape victims, and imprisonment for "black magic", remain in the code. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, has hundreds of regulations at the local level that discriminate against women, religious minorities, and LGBT people.
Clauses related to morality, she added, would "do more harm than good", especially for businesses engaged in the tourism and hospitality sectors.
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