22/07/2026
INDONESIA’S LGBTQ COMMUNITY FACES MOB-STYLE ATTACKS AFTER INDONESIAN PRESIDENT CALLS THEM A “NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT"
READ ASEAN SOGIE Caucus STATEMENT HERE:
ASEAN SOGIE Caucus Warns Against the Securitisation of LGBTQ in Indonesia
"A regional human rights organisation questions the basis for classifying LGBTQ people as a “non-military threat” and warns the history shows the dangers of turning minorities into security concerns.
ASEAN SOGIE Caucus expresses grave concern over Indonesia’ Presidential Regulation No.111/2025 on the General Defence Policy (2025-2029), which classifies the alleged "dissemination of LGBTQ culture” as a threat to national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security.
The organisation warns that this unprecedented classification represents a dangerous shift from moral framed and political rhetoric to state securitisation. Once a minority group is officially framed as a security threat, extraordinary state measures–including surveillance, profiling, restrictions on association, censorship, criminalisation, and arbitrary enforcement–can become easier to justify. Even worse, as it provides rooms for non-state actors to form some-kind of paramilitary vigilante group that conducts raids and attacks.
“LGBTQ people are not threats to national security. They are members of families and faith-based communities. They are students, workers, and service providers who keep communities alive. Stigmatizing LGBTQ persons essentially threatens a population who contributes to the economy and to everyone’s safety. Ensuring LGBTQ persons rights to dignity privacy, safety, health care, education, and equal protection under the law is both a legal and ethical obligation of the government,” Ryan Silverio, Executive Director of ASEAN SOGIE Caucus
ASEAN SOGIE Caucus questions the Government of Indonesia, particularly President Prabowo Subianto, on what legal, empirical, or national security evidence that supports the inclusion of alleged "dissemination of LGBTQ culture” as a non-military threat. To date, no publicly available evidence has demonstrated that LGBTQ people pose any threat to Indonesia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, or public safety.
The organisation further warns that history demonstrates the dangers of governments classifying minority communities as security threats. During N**i Germany, Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code was expanded and aggressively enforced to identify, surveil, arrest, and persecute homos*xual through the machinery of state.
“I hope that Indonesia today is not inheriting what the fascist N**i regime to LGBTQ persons. History provides an important warning that when governments transform prejudice into security policy, discrimination can become institutionalised, surveillance normalised, and violence legitimised", Lini Zurlia, Advocacy Manager of ASEAN SOGIE Caucus added.
The consequences of such narratives are already becoming visible. In recent weeks, online campaigns linked to the so-called “Anti-Boti” movement, which encourages people to identify, expose, and target individuals perceived to be LGBTQ, and the most vulnerable groups to be targeted are transwomen and those who are gender non-conforming. Following viral vigilante attacks against transwomen in Bogor City and District Bogor, affiliated to Anti-Boti social media accounts rapidly appeared across numerous cities. Between July 15 to 18, 2026, several transwomen and perceived to be q***r were reportedly chased, assaulted, humiliated, s*xually harassed, and forced into hiding in the cities of Bogor, Tangerang, Samarinda, and Palu.
These incidents demonstrate how state narratives portraying LGBTQ people as threats can embolden non-state actors to engage in surveillance, harassment, and violence.
Although Indonesia does not criminalise LGBTQ people through a single national law, LGBTQ communities increasingly face discrimination through a combination of national security narratives, local regulations, sanctions, public exposures, vigilante actions and morality provision in Indonesia’s Phonographic and Information and Technology Law. The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) proposal to draft legislation targeting LGBT-related activities raises further concern that securitisation could evolve into formal criminalisation.
The implications extend beyond Indonesia
Across Southeast Asia, political actors increasingly invoke morality, religion, culture and national identity to justify restrictions on LGBTQ communities. When these narratives become embedded in national security policy, they create dangerous precedents that can be replicated throughout the region.
ASEAN SOGIE Caucus calls on the Government of Indonesia to:
- Revoke provisions under Presidential Regulation No. 111 of 2025 that categorise the alleged “dissemination of LGBTQ culture” as a non-military threat.
- Publicly explain the legal and evidentiary basis for this classification
- Reject legislative proposals that seek to criminalise people based on their s*xual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or s*x characteristics.
- Investigate and hold accountable perpetrators of threats, doxxing, vigilantism, harassment, and violence against LGBTQ people.
- Guarantee equal access to justice, healthcare, education, employment, and protection without discrimination.
ASEAN SOGIE Caucus also calls upon ASEAN Institutions, the United Nations, national human rights institutions, civil society organisations, and the regional–international community to closely monitor developments in Indonesia and support efforts to protect LGBTQ communities from violence, brutal attack and human rights violations.
“Securitisation has always been one of the most dangerous tools available to states because it transforms prejudice into a matter of national defence. Governments must never use national security as a justification to strip people of their dignity, rights and humanity”, said Lini Zurlia."
Read more here: https://globalnation.inquirer.net/332137/asean-group-condemns-indonesias-lgbt-security-threat-label?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwY2xjawTNYz9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFlRzV6SFZ4RFU0Y0liZUNRc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHm2bF1eUkNtP2ASoWzYvpaAqv1b2D4a5yXpv3y_qKFtxLWAGTe_FQc8VMj3e_aem_E_vvuEdD8mPSdptsrsZYjA
A man accused of having gay s*x is publicly caned by a member of the Sharia police in Banda Aceh on August 26, 2025. Gay s*x is outlawed in Aceh, which imposes a version of sharia, the Islamic legal
