Jakarta, Indonesia (Photo by Alex Traveler/Bigstock)
Organizers of an LGBTQ and intersex event that was to have begun on July 10 in Indonesia said safety concerns prompted them to cancel it.
Reuters reported activists from across Southeast Asia were to have attended the ASEAN Queer Advocacy Week in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.
The ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, which is based in the Philippines, and Arus Pelangi, an Indonesian LGBTQ and intersex rights group, were among the groups that organized the event.
“The organizers have been monitoring the situation very closely, including the wave of ‘anti-LGBT’ sentiments in social media,” said the ASEAN SOGIE Caucus in a statement. “The decision was made to ensure the safety and security of both the participants and the organizer.”
“We affirm our call for ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and government stakeholders to create spaces for dialogue with marginalized groups, including those discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics,” notes the statement. “Our joint vision of an inclusive ASEAN region is premised on the existence of safe spaces for civil society and for rights-holders to learn about the institution, to discuss issues that matter to them, and to collectively exercise our right to freely express our views on how ASEAN advanced, or not, the human rights of our community.”
The statement says “threats to the very existence of our lives and dignity are part of the everyday realities of LGBTQIA+ persons.”
“Online hate, direct attacks against human rights defenders, and reprisals to our exercise of civil and political rights, are issues we confront and must be dealt with by governments. We urge ASEAN human rights mechanisms to monitor and respond to these,” it adds. “In difficult situations where hate overshadows us, we rely on our collective strength as a community of human rights defenders. To LGBTQIA+ activists, be strong: Our collective strength as a movement will sustain our activism.”
The Washington Blade on Thursday spoke with ASEAN SOGIE Caucus Executive Director Ryan Silverio about the decision to cancel the Indonesia event.
“It is unfortunate that a civil society event to be conducted in private has been discredited and attacked online,” said Silverio. “We decided to change our plans to ensure everyone’s safety. Attacks against LGBTQIA+ human rights defenders is symptomatic of a growing hate in our region, and the continuously shrinking civic space.”
Special US envoy for LGBTQ, intersex rights cancelled Indonesia trip in 2022
Consensual same-sex sexual relations are decriminalized in most of Indonesia, but officials in Aceh province in 2021 caned two men under Shariah law after their neighbors caught them having sex.
Authorities in Jakarta in 2017 arrested 51 people who were attending a “gay party” at a sauna. The closure of an Islamic school for transgender people in the city of Yogyakarta the year before also sparked outrage.
Jessica Stern, the special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights, cancelled her trip to Indonesia last December after the country’s most prominent Islamic group criticized it.
“ASEAN cannot deny us being their constituents,” Silverio told the Blade. “Recognition of our community who have been invisibilized, whose human rights are ignored, whose issues not addressed is long overdue.”
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