Indonesian police arrest two men over gay sex video

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Two Indonesian men have been arrested for allegedly uploading a video of themselves having sex to social media, police said Tuesday, January 23, amid a crackdown on the LGBT community in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation.

Police in Depok, a city in West Java province, arrested the men Saturday after a member of the public reported the “gay porn” video to authorities, police said.

“They have been arrested and detained,” Depok police spokesman Putu Kholis Aryana told AFP.

“We will apply the law on pornography and the electronic information and transactions (ITE) law.”

Homosexuality and gay sex are legal everywhere in Indonesia except in conservative Aceh province, which is ruled by Islamic law.

But police have often used the country’s tough anti-pornography legislation to criminalize members of the LGBT community.

The electronic information law is also frequently used by public officials to bring criminal charges against people accused of making internet-based insults and defamation.

Saturday’s arrests come against a backdrop of growing hostility towards Indonesia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

Government officials, religious hardliners and influential Islamic groups have lined up to make anti-LGBT statements in public recently.

Last week, Indonesia’s communications ministry requested that Google remove 73 LGBT applications, including dating services, from its Play Store and urged people to steer clear of apps that did not fit with social and cultural norms.

The community has also been targeted in a number of raids on “gay sex” parties in the country’s two largest cities Jakarta and Surabaya.

Ten men were sentenced in December to two years in prison for taking part in what authorities called a “gay sex party” at a sauna. – Rappler.com