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The widely condemned move to put ‘free love’ in a marital straight jacket, also makes it a criminal offence to attack the Indonesian President or to comment against the democratic state’s national ideology.

If that weren’t enough to keep the nation’s morality and political rights locked up in a chastity belt, the new criminal code also makes it a jailable offence for a citizen to renounce his or her religious beliefs.

PARTY IS OVER FOR BOHEMIAN BALI: Even tourists face casual or pre-marital sex ban by the new penal code enacted on Tuesday in Indonesia due to a ‘moral-reinforcement-fervour’ wave engulfing the country’s human rights

Adultery is already banned in this Muslim majority nation, which, of course, in accordance with Muslim law, allows Muslims to have their quota of four wives simultaneously, if they so wish. But for the 30 million minority, except for Balinese Hindus, the marital vows of fidelity are legally upheld and enforced by the State; and living in sin or having the consensual casual fling will land them in a prison cell.

Romance is now out of bounds, legally made forbidden. The Indonesian Government has done what even God didn’t do when He made Adam and Eve and let them live free in paradise, without asking them first to tie the nuptial knot.

What makes the new penal code even worse is that it is not a mushroom that has suddenly sprouted from muck or an impetuous upsurge of puritanical fervour but the reaped fruit of Indonesian legislators’ studious toil. The danger is that the flower of their efforts may not be let to wither fast, without its blossom crushed in bloom.

The code has been in the making for years. A draft version was set to be made law in 2019 but was sent back to the draftsman’s table after it met massive protests by human rights watchers. Now revised, retouched and respun, it has been presented and passed by the Indonesian Parliament, as the criminal code that accommodates all ‘public aspirations.’

The new code’s enactment was hailed as a ‘much-needed overhaul of a colonial vestige.’ The head of the parliamentary commission that supervised its revision, Bambang Wuryanto, told Parliament, “the old code belongs to Dutch heritage and is no longer relevant now.’

Perhaps not relevant to Indonesia’s radical shift from being a ‘flawed’ democracy to a moral dictatorship, which tramples on free speech and civil liberties, but how relevant are the new alchemic laws that seek to turn vices into virtue and cast the citizen’s image in gold, to the doctrine of criminal jurisprudence?

For starters, can they be enforced? Is the Indonesian Government poised to turn its police force into an army of peeping toms? Will they now be endowed with the legal right to invade the privacy of any home or hotel room, to snoop through windowpanes and video couples making love as ‘caught in the act’ evidence?

Will the mere fact of a couple sharing a room be a presumption of guilt, with the onus placed on the occupiers to prove their innocence? Will CCTV cameras have to be placed inside each room to help them prove they were as chaste as nuns?

Will even the married be safe from police inquisitions? Will they, whose sexual intercourse is blessed by the State, suffer ‘coitus interruptus’ when prying policemen stage surprise swoops on suspicion and demand to see the marriage certificate from astonished naked couples?

Can Indonesia, with its moral police, effectively crackdown on the sex it has now made illegal, on the love it has now branded as forbidden or douse the primordial fire that burn in every human breast on the 10,000 odd inhabited islands in the country’s archipelago? Or will efforts to stamp its jackboot on what it now terms as illegal sex, be as futile as keeping the lid on Krakatoa from erupting?

It is for this and other similar reasons, why prostitution or pre-marital sex or the biblical commandment ‘thou shall not commit adultery’, has not been made criminal offences in Sri Lanka which, in common with many secular states, has wisely refrained from enacting personal laws that are practically unenforceable.

Unenforceable laws are ineffective laws. Nothing brings the majesty of the law into contempt and ridicule than laws that are ineffective. To have such impotent laws in the statue books is akin to having scarecrows in paddy fields. They may deter at first the thieving birds but soon the fear wears out when it is discovered it has no bite.

As for Indonesia making cohabitation a crime in the 21st century and gloating on its outlandish contribution to public morality it is nothing more than a retrogressive step against modern world trends.

In this respect, Lanka has recognised for centuries the act of living together as a valid form of marriage until the invading catholic colonialists turned it into a sin. However, it survived the alien onslaught; and cohabitation remains valid, requiring no formal registration except proof that it has subsisted for a reasonable duration and was done openly.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday warned: ‘The code will invade privacy and enable police to extort bribes, politicians to harass opponents, undermines free speech and violate human rights, including the rights of the LGBT community.’

Apart from clamping down on the nation’s sexual libido, the draconian code places all six recognised religious congregations in one common cloistered convent, with legally armed guards patrolling the perimeter to prevent anyone leaving the faith. Those who dare to renounce their religion, and anyone who attempts to persuade another to renounce the faith, will be jailed for apostasy.

If anyone is unhappy with this as forming part of Indonesia’s national ideology, there is nothing much they can do but like it or lump it. For, if they dare criticise the ideology, they, too, will be thrown into jail. It’s the triumph of the medieval Dark Ages snuffing out the flame of free thought for 270 million human beings on this earth.

The night of ignorance has descended on Indonesia and her people. In ignorance, their fanatical political masters celebrate the advent of this repugnant moral code. For they do not know what they do. Reason has fled these brutish beasts and repentance may come too late.

Thankfully, the terrifying onset of the total blackout has now been put on hold. A three-year period has been given before the code takes legal force. The grace granted, not out of mercy but out from despair, is because these fumbling clueless legislators are yet to figure out how to enforce its harsh regulations.

The moral inquisitionists had been far too engrossed with the rhetoric of persuasion that they had failed to draft the means to achieve their odious ends. The moral cake had taken years in the making, now it was baked and oven fresh, but none had learnt how to slice it.

Thus it will stay, for the coming three years, as the grotesque symbol of Indonesia’s warped moral zeal. In these three years of grace, before they find the way to force it down the people‘s throat, it’s best for Indonesians to pray at their altars of faith that this immoral bid to enforce barbaric laws in God’s name will be denied, its proponents rebuked and their perverse moral code, debunked out of existence.

In Sri Lanka, with the recent experience of how bigotry — emboldened by a local Taliban, nourished for the purpose — was unleashed in the name of Buddhism by villainous politicians, still afresh in our minds, perhaps, it’s best we, too, out from an abundance of caution, invoke the guardian deities to prevent the revolting happenings in Indonesia today from happening in Lanka tomorrow.

PTA detained monk finds freedom at last Activist monk, Siridhamma Thera who had been held under the PTA for over 90 days, finally walked out to freedom after a magistrate released him on bail on Monday. The monk, who had been in the forefront of the people’s peaceful struggle which had led to ex-President Gotabaya’s downfall on July 9, had been detained, along with fellow activist, Wasantha Mudalige, by the police whilst taking part in a protest march on August 18. They were held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for a 72 hour period. On August 22, President Ranil Wickremesinghe signed a PTA order detaining them both for a further 3 months. Last month, they were transferred from PTA detention to judicial remand custody. No charges had been made against them when they were held under PTA. ONE MAN AND A MONK: Siridhamma Thera released, Mudalige still held On November 23, Siridhamma Thera was produced in the Colombo Magistrate Court and freed on bail. He had been held for 96 days. The other activist, Mudalige, was not produced in court and continued to remain remanded. However, the monk’s new found freedom was short lived. The same Wednesday afternoon, he was produced before the Kaduwela magistrate court and remanded for a further14 days. This time a charge was made. He and Mudalige were alleged to have caused damage to public property during a protest held in June this year. On Monday, both activists were produced in the Kaduwela magistrate’s court and were released on bail. This time, the monk, found freedom’s air sweeter than it had been two weeks ago when he had been allowed only a puff before being taken in again. Mudalige, was not so fortunate. He had to return to his remand cell to face another day in court on Monday, in connection with another case. As Siridhamma Thera left court to bask in his new found freedom, he said: ‘Over the past few months, the people launched a massive struggle as they were going through enormous hardships. We joined that struggle. I will struggle until Mudalige is also released.’ Five months ago, they were hailed as heroes for the part they had played in the people’s peaceful struggle against a president who had lost his mandate. True, they had triumphed to the nation’s applause but their victory had been pyrrhic. With the political status quo swiftly restored by armed force, they had been exiled to languish in jail, spat out and forgotten, turned redundant as chewed gum is once its flavour has gone. One man and a monk who fought for justice for all, now alone to fight for their own.

Court sends wake up call to AG over Namal ‘black-money’ caseThe Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday sent a wake-up call to the Attorney General to expedite his legal advice on a multimillion rupee money laundering case filed against SLPP MP Namal Rajapaksa and others. The magistrate dispatched the reminder to the AG after the CID informed court that it had concluded primary investigations and was awaiting instruction from the AG whether or not to proceed against the suspects. Namal Rajapaksa and four others are accused of running a money laundering racket amounting to Rs. 15m at NR Consultations Ltd. and another similar laundering operation of Rs. 30m at Gowers Ltd in 2012. The then Attorney General, now present Chief Justice, Jayantha Jayasuriya, had filed indictments in the High Court against Namal and the rest in August 2017. The laws delay has been a perennial bane to litigants who seek justice in court. For some, the delays have often resulted in justice denied. Even in Namal’s case, he has had to wait for five years to clear his name and now with the case postponed to May next year, will, probably, have to wait much longer, unlike his uncle, Basil, who had his name cleared in all the criminal cases filed against him within two years, and walked out from court rooms with the epithet, ’Nidos Kota Nidahas’, or acquitted and freed. As Basil Rajapaksa told a press conference in June this year to announce his resignation from Parliament, ‘I returned to Sri Lanka to achieve two aims. One of them was to clear my name from all charges in court. This I have achieved. I have proved my innocence.’ Alas, Namal hasn’t been as fortunate as his uncle, with judicial delays dogging his case at every turn. He joins the ranks of those who have to wait for years to have their cases heard. Give the young man a break to get on with his life and political career, free of criminal taint. Exercise diligence, as admirably shown before, to grant speedy justice; and, as per the magistrate’s request, tend your advice pronto, to enable Namal to prove his innocence in court, and, thereby, like uncle, like nephew, wear his ‘Nidos Kota Nidahas’ crest by right.