(Updated with response from Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil at the bottom of the article)
Hey, remember how Indonesia was recently attacked by religious extremists who want to impose their moral laws on our country? Well another religious extremist group (which is known to have supported ISIS in the past) is getting to impose their moral views in Bandung, with the assistance of the local government and police.
Members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), our country’s premier organization for faux-religious thugs, conducted raids on kosts (boarding houses) in the Bandung Kalung area of Bandung on Monday night with the aim of finding gay and lesbian occupants.
The organizational coordinator for FPI in Bandung Kulon, Tubagus Abbas Murodi, told Tempo that the presence of LGBT individuals in the area was making people restless. Specifically he said that there had been a group of lesbians who had rented rooms at a cost and been found drinking alcohol and performing “immoral acts”.
According to Tempo, FPI’s raids were apparently not only sanctioned but assisted by the local government, including members of the Bandung Kulon Police and the Bandung Department of Population and Civil Registration.
Tubagus said that several of the rooms they raided were inhabited by two or more women.
“We found five women in one room. It has not been proven they they are lesbians. We leave it entirely as a matter of judicial operations for the local authorities,” he said as quoted by Tempo.
Well, nice of them to leave some of the judging to the local authorities…
Local residents also put up posters saying lesbians and homosexuals were not allowed in the area (although one local leader said they would be taken down “for violating advertising regulations”).
How can any part of the Indonesian government allow an extremist group like FPI to do as they please while at the same time denying LGBT groups and supporters to exist openly and peacefully?
Well can look to our leaders. Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil made clear that he thinks that LGBT individuals and supporters should not publicly assert their rights, especially on social media because they “go against the norms”.
Will we see Ridwan say anything to denounce FPI’s vigilante actions, supported by members of his own government? We’re not holding our breath.
Update: Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil responded to this story on Twitter, saying:
“I checked. The local government (sub-district / village chief / police / military) of Bandung Kulon subdistrict performed a routine security door to door at all homes / boarding houses in the context of security / conduciveness post the bombing of Sarinah. There were no LGBT raids. Related to the action claimed to be done by FPI, there is no connection with the activities of the local government. Through the sub-district head I have asked for them to be reprimanded and that the provocative banners be taken down, thanks.”
We’ll take him at his word that the original reporting by Tempo was simply inaccurate, but it still means that FPI was allowed to conduct their raids and nobody in the government bothered to stop them or put them in jail for their vigilante actions.
Ridwan also went on twitter to backtrack on his previous anti-LGBT comments by saying he was actually only referring to groups that targeted underage childrens. After people pointed out that any groups who target underage children, homosexual or heterosexual, should not be tolerated, he is now claiming that he was actually just condeming pedophiles the whole time. Even though he didn’t say anything remotely close to that in the original stories about his anti-LGBT comments.
