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Indonesian MP says death penalty should be introduced for LGBTQ people

  • Feb 09 2018
  • Written by Meka Beresford

Indonesian MP Muslim Ayub (Facebook)

An Indonesian MP has said that he believes LGBTQ+ people should be sentenced to death or a life in prison for their acts.

Muslim Ayub made the comments as the Indonesian House of Representatives debated on amendments to the criminal code which would criminalise gay and pre-marital sex.

A group of Muslim protesters march with banners against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Banda Aceh on Decmber 27, 2017. There has been a growing backlash against Indonesia's small lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community over the past year, with ministers, hardliners and influential Islamic groups lining up to make anti-LGBT statements in public. / AFP PHOTO / Chaideer MAHYUDDIN (Photo credit should read CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/AFP/Getty Images)

(Getty)

Representing his party, the Islamist National Mandate Party (PAN), Ayub said that the proposed law should punish same-sex relations with capital punishment.

He added that he wanted those who “promote LGBTQ behaviour” to also face criminal penalties.

Speaking to Jurnalia Indonesia, Ayub said that he and his party would not stop at criminalising gay sex as they feel the whole LGBTQ+ community should face persecution.

“We were not satisfied. We want a death sentence or a lifetime jail sentence to have a deterrent effect on the LGBT (community),” he said.

Ayub is the representative of the Aceh province in Indonesia.

TAKENGON, INDONESIA: An Acehnese executor flogs a convicted woman in Takengon, in Indonesian central Aceh province, 19 August 2005 after an Islamic sharia court ordered four women to be flogged for petty gambling offences. The public lashing was the second since the Indonesian government allowed the western province to implement religious law as part of broader autonomy granted in 2001 to curb a separatist Islamist insurgency. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images)

(Photo by STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Related: UN Human Rights Office ‘concerned’ by floggings, arrests of gay men in Indonesia

It is the only province which follows Sharia law – making it the only place currently in Indonesia where it is illegal to be gay.

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