Transgender women in Pekanbaru intimidated into leaving boarding house by Islamic Defenders Front vigilantes

The Holy Month of Ramadan is meant to be about peace and reflecting on the hardships of others but, for a few groups, it’s become an excuse to persecute those whose beliefs are different from their own. The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), Indonesia’s most controversial hardline Islamist organization, often engage in moral vigilante acts during Ramadan and as a result of a raid by the group’s branch in Pekanbaru today, a group of transgender women is now facing the hardship of finding a new home.

According to reports by regional media outlets, early this morning members of FPI Pekanbaru raided a kost (boarding house), located in a neighborhood near the entrance to Universitas Riau that was home to about 15 transgender women (commonly referred to as waria, a portmanteau of the Indonesian words for woman and man).

The group’s leadership claimed that they raided the house based on reports from locals who were “disturbed” by the presence of the waria living in the house.

“We see that there are places where waria are suspected of having committed deviant activities that violate the rules of the Quran,” said Hendrik, one of the vigilante group’s leaders, as quoted by HalloRiau.

According to Hendrik, the group warned the waria from committing any immoral acts and made them sign an agreement that they would leave the area.

In the video below, a member of the waria group can be seen reading out part of the agreement saying they would leave the boarding house and the district for violating the “norms” of the area.

FPI Pekanbaru said they raided the waria’s kost to uphold Pekanbaru’s regulations that certain venues of vice, such as nightclubs and bars, remain closed during Ramadan. However, the organization has no legal authority to carry out such raids and government officials such as Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin have warned the group from carrying out such vigilante “sweeping” actions this year (as they seem to inevitably do, every year).

Despite that, police in Pekanbaru have not given any indication that FPI will be punished for their actions, and we aren’t holding our breaths for them to do so.

Waria have often become the target of persecution due to the moral panic over LGBT rights that has gripped Indonesia for much of the last two years. This has been especially true of ultra-conservative areas of the country such as Aceh, where authorities themselves have been recorded harassing and abusing transgender women.

Last year, members of FPI in Cilaku, West Java, were actually accompanied by police officers as they went around “sweeping” their neighborhood, an act that included physically restraining and harassing several waria.

However, there is also a significant amount of opposition to FPI among Indonesians. A Change.org petition demanding that the government not renew the group’s permit has now garnered over 400,000 signatures and the Home Affairs Ministry said it would at least consider the petition’s request.