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Indonesia's new criminal code is set to penalise the act of sex outside of marriage, reported Reuters.

The controversial change to the law — which is expected to be passed by the country's parliament in December 2022 — will see the acts of fornication punished with up to one year in jail.

Also to be banned once the overhauled criminal code kicks in are:

• cohabitation before marriage
• insulting the president or state institutions
• expressing views counter to Indonesia's state ideology
• getting an abortion, with the exception of rape victims
• using "black magic"

In an interview with Reuters, Indonesia’s deputy justice minister, Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej, said that the criminal code would be "in line with Indonesian values".

Previous draft of bill abandoned

A previous attempt at passing a new criminal code was abandoned in 2019, with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, popularly referred to as Jokowi, citing public concern over some of the amendments.

At the time, The Jakarta Post reported that Indonesia's parliament had received backlash over contentious articles in the proposed bill that would effectively criminalise activities considered normal while threatening civil rights like freedom of expression and privacy.

However, four days before that draft of the bill was meant to be passed, Jokowi called a halt to proceedings.

Critics: changes minimal

According to Reuters, the latest draft has been criticised as having undergone minimal changes since 2019.

One change that was made was to include a provision that could allow individuals on death row to be given the lighter sentence of life imprisonment after 10 years of good behaviour.

Discussions over overhauling Indonesia's criminal code have gone on ever since the Southeast Asian country declared independence from the Dutch in 1945.

Top image from Prananta Haroun via Unsplash