The civilized among Indonesia’s large internet population are apologizing en masse to Thailand following an ugly cross-border display of homophobia toward their regional neighbors.
Earlier this week, a high-profile legal campaigner in Thailand said Indonesians would not be welcome in his country after an unfortunately large number of netizens harassed and made death threats toward a newlywed same-sex Thai couple on Facebook.
Related — Married Thai couple shaken by harassment, death threats from homophobic Indonesians
With news of the harassment traveling fast throughout Indonesia, many in the country say they are ashamed by the appalling behavior of certain homophobic groups, and are today showing solidarity toward their Thai friends.
The hashtag #IndonesiaSaySorryForThailand [sic], which contains messages of apology towards Thai and LGBTQ+ people, has become the top trending topic on Indonesian Twitter today.
As an Indonesian myself, I’m really sorry on behalf those ‘mindless’ ‘uneducated’ people whose throwing hate towards lgbtq+ community especially for the newlyweds🥺😭🙏🏼🙏🏼
I hope any kind of this matter will not happen again in the future #Indonesiasaysorryforthailand pic.twitter.com/OWqXIuEXuu— Inces💚 (@princesshayo1) April 14, 2021
different country, different cultures, different religions, please respect each other. on behalf of indonesian, i deeply apologize for any disrespect, their hurtful words and actions. 🙏🏻#Indonesiasaysorryforthailand#ApologizetoThailand #อินโดนีเซียขอโทษไทย
— lenora (@trouzvaille) April 14, 2021
https://twitter.com/pacarnyakit/status/1382236607818866689?s=20
The hashtag is also populating the Thai couple’s Facebook post, which had for days become the site of a flame war between Indonesians and Thais, as well as a cesspool of homophobia and Islamophobia toward Indonesia’s Muslims.
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