More than ever in the world’s third-largest democracy, it may pay to keep your mouth shut and your pants up.

New laws enacted in Indonesia this month criminalise a slew of supposed transgressions ranging from demeaning the president to unmarried sex. Even witches and shamans be warned: offering your supernatural powers to harm others could land you in jail.

Illustration by Dionne GainCredit:

The nation’s new criminal code (KUHP is the Indonesian acronym) has been in development for years, eventually passing into law in 2022 under then-president Joko Widodo and waiting in storage until January 2 this year to give it, and the public, time to get acquainted. The administration of Prabowo Subianto has carriage now.

It shakes off the century-old Dutch version with something actually home-grown. This much is good. Out is a relic of colonialism, and in are laws made by Indonesian democracy.

Provisions such as encouraging sentencing judges to look at alternatives to prison, and making penalties consistent across the vast archipelago, are generally seen as positives too.

But it also reaches into areas of freedom of expression, assembly and personal rights. And this is hot-button stuff in a body politic proud of its democratic reform from the late 1990s. The reaction from civil society and media groups to the code’s entirety has been caustic.

The Jakarta Post editorialised recently the KUHP “must be challenged” in the courts. Indeed, several judicial petitions have already been filed, including from 12 university students who argue that article 218 – which makes “attacks on the honour or dignity” of the president and vice-president a jailable offence – is unconstitutional.

If not unconstitutional, it is at least glass-jawed.

The legislation clarifies that........

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