Indonesia

(AFP) — Indonesia’s human rights body on Tuesday slammed a crackdown on the LGBT community in a city that was once home to a man described as Britain’s most prolific rapist.

AFP — The father of an Indonesian student described as Britain’s most prolific rapist said his son’s life sentence “fits the crimes”, as the lurid case sparked shock and disgust in his native country. On Monday, a judge in Manchester

Indonesia on Friday announced it would increase maritime patrols around islands in the South China Sea, a few days after Chinese coast guard vessels “trespassed” near the northern Natuna Islands.

Police in the Indonesian city of Makassar carried out “condom raids” at convenience stores across the city Tuesday in an effort to prevent sexual intercourse from taking place during New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Hardline Islamists in Indonesia signaled they will keep trying to ban one of Asia’s biggest annual dance music festivals, the Djakarta Warehouse Project (DWP), because it brings “immorality” into the capital city (whose name is more commonly spelled “Jakarta” outside of Indonesia) and violates Islamic law.

Governments on the Indonesian island of Sumatra have banned Christians from celebrating Christmas in private homes, according to a report Thursday from International Christian Concern (ICC).

President Joko Widodo of Indonesia warned the nation’s devout Muslims on Tuesday not to use violence to enforce a fatwa handed down by the nation’s Islamic council in 2016 against Christmas celebrations, urging tolerance for other faiths.

An Indonesian school teacher was arrested this weekend on charges of molesting 18 of his school students, having reportedly making them swear to secrecy through the Islamic holy book. 

An Indonesian man who fainted during a brutal public flogging Thursday for indulging in pre-marital sex was revived and then had his punishment resumed before he was taken to hospital for recovery.

A celebrity spiritual “healer” in Indonesia has caused controversy after telling a supposed spirit within a woman’s body that she deserved the gang rape and consequent suicide. 

A strictly observant Muslim Indonesian man – who worked as a religious policeman enforcing adultery laws – has been publicly whipped after being caught with a married woman. He now stands to lose his job after local Islamic officials expressed a lack of confidence in his ability to discharge his duties.

Indonesian crash investigators stated in a recently published report that a series of failures by Boeing led to the fatal Lion Air Flight 610, one of two Boeing 737 Max aircraft to crash in a short period of time.

Islamic organizations in Indonesia voiced their concern this weekend over a group of Muslim men wearing religious female attire. One group called on police to start cracking down against such behavior.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced long-awaited plans to relocate the country’s capital from the overcrowded metropolis of Jakarta to a site in sparsely populated East Kalimantan province on Borneo island, local media reported Wednesday.

South Korea is planning a series of events to promote halal restaurants in a bid to boost Islamic tourism, the Korean Tourism Organization announced on Wednesday.

A Turkish ambassador this week called for his country and Indonesia to be deemed permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

In the 1990s sportswear giant Nike became a target of complaints because it used sweatshop labor in Asia to manufacture its products. Despite subsequent efforts to end the practice, some human rights activists say the company still has issues with unsafe and unfair labor practices.

Government and independent officials in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Islamic country, have dismissed assertions by the United States and human rights group that China is abusing millions of predominantly Uighur Muslims in internment camps as “American propaganda,” a report by an Indonesian think-tank revealed this week.

Some caliphate-seeking “Islamists” in the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, are the “first” to step up to the plate and provide assistance during natural disasters on the largest island nation in the world, the Associated Press (AP) celebrated this week.

An anonymous “person knowledgeable about the matter” told the Wall Street Journal in a report published Monday that Kim Jong-nam, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s late older brother, was a CIA informant before his 2017 assassination.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will sell 34 surveillance drones to four American allies in the South China Sea, Reuters reported Tuesday.

North Korea’s Ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song held a press conference at U.N. headquarters on Tuesday in which he demanded the return of the Wise Honest, a cargo vessel seized by the United States for shipping coal in violation of U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

Indonesian police struggled to contain thousands-strong riots late Tuesday against the re-election of moderate President Joko Widodo over hard-line military general Prabowo Subianto. The unreast has killed six and injured hundreds since Islamic groups called for “constitutional jihad” against Widodo this weekend.

Incumbent Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo was officially declared on Tuesday the winner of the election held April 17. His opponent Prabowo Subianto refused to accept the results, alleging “structural, systemic, and massive” voter fraud was responsible for Widodo’s victory.

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced the seizure of a North Korean ship called Wise Honest, which was allegedly engaged in selling North Korean coal in violation of international sanctions.

Doan Thi Huong, the second of two women accused of murdering North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, in 2017, was released from prison in Malaysia on Friday. Her co-defendant, Siti Aisyah, was abruptly released in March, with all charges dropped.

Indonesia’s presidential election on Wednesday – the largest single-day election in history, with almost 193 million eligible voters casting ballots for 245,000 candidates spread across 17,000 islands – appears to have returned incumbent President Joko Widodo to office. The race was strongly influenced by Indonesia’s slide into hardline Islamism.

The Jakarta Post on Monday reported on a rash of desecrations directed at Christian graves in the city of Yogyakarta, a spree some local residents believe was a targeted act of intolerance rather than random vandalism. A rising tide of hardline Islamism has become a major factor in the impending Indonesian presidential election.

Google has removed an app from the Google Play store which encouraged gay people to go through “conversion therapy,” following complaints from LGBT groups. Google still hasn’t removed an app which allows users to report “heresy” to Indonesia’s strict Muslim government, however, nor has the company removed a Saudi Arabian app which allows men to track women and limit their movement.

An off-duty pilot in the cockpit of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed in Indonesia the next day, killing 189 people, reportedly saved the plane the day before by telling the crew “how to disable a malfunctioning flight-control system.”