LBGT a threat to national security? – Emerlynne Gil

Southeast Asian governments are increasingly restricting the work of human rights defenders, misusing a variety of laws supposedly aimed at defending “national security” or countering vaguely defined “terrorist threats”.

Some figures recently released by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst, reveal the scale of the problem.

In 2015, the special rapporteur sent 66 communications to governments in the Asia Pacific region — the highest number of communications sent compared to all the other regions in the world.

To add to the problem, the response rate by governments in the Asia Pacific region was 42%, the second lowest next to Africa’s 21%.

His observations uncover a picture of human rights defenders in the Asia Pacific region face increasing risks as they do their work promoting and protecting human rights, with governments continuing to disregard allegations of violations against them.

The Special Rapporteur’s observations are consistent with concerns expressed by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in the past couple of years, that there is an emerging trend of the use of laws to criminalise legitimate and peaceful activities of human rights defenders.

In the Asean region, examples of these laws are Malaysia’s Sedition Act of 1948 and Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act, which unduly limit the right to freedom of expression and opinion of human rights defenders in those countries.

Another emerging trend that ICJ has observed and has emerged as well in the observations of the Special Rapporteur is that of the developments of laws that negatively impact certain rights of human rights defenders, such as the rights to freedom of expression and association.

One of the most alarming manifestations of this unfortunate trend comes from Indonesia, where government officials have been citing “national security” to restrict human rights defenders working to protect the rights of people to be free of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Recently, Indonesian Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu said that homosexuality was “a form of modern warfare, an attempt by Western nations to undermine the country’s sovereignty”.

This comes on the heels of comments by former information and communications minister Tifatul Sembiring “to kill all gay persons”.

Vice-President Jusuf Kalla recently called for funding to be discontinued to a UN program that is aimed at addressing the stigma, discrimination and violence toward lesbians, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) persons in Indonesia.

Furthermore, there have been reports of the State Intelligence Agency urging donors to stop funding LGBT groups on the premise that they cause destabilisation and insecurity in the country.

In this context, Indonesian human rights defenders are rightly concerned about a draft law on national security that is being discussed in the House of Representatives. Particularly problematic is the draft law’s very vague definition of what would constitute a “threat to national security”.

In the most recent version of the draft law, a “threat” to national security is any type of activity, whether done in Indonesia or abroad, which may endanger the nation’s safety, security, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

A threat could also be any action that endangers the “national interest”, whether it is the nation’s ideology, politics, economy and socio-cultural life.

As demonstrated by recent statements, it is entirely possible that such a vague and ambiguous definition would be abused in Indonesia to harass, intimidate and subject the country’s LGBT community as a “threat to national security”.

Indonesia must halt the creeping return of the nasty old habit of claiming that critical or marginalised voices threaten the country’s national security. Indonesia’s civil society has been able to flourish in the past few years since the fall of the Soeharto government, and this is a sign of a growing, vibrant, confident country.

Furthermore, as Asean touts its economic development and looks ahead to greater integration, it must create more, not less, space for civil society.

Indonesia leads among Asean member states in human rights promotion and protection. It should therefore ensure that any measure meant to safeguard national security does not target people who do not conform to traditional gender roles.

Measures to safeguard national security should protect all Indonesians, without exception — including LGBT persons. – Jakarta Post, March 13, 2016.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.