The spotlight has shown on Indonesia in recent months, as political leaders’ sudden gay bashing in the media has sent the country’s LGBT activists into stealth mode.
However, one activist has stood tall in a country where it isn’t easy being out, in spite of homosexuality not being illegal.
May is a big month for Yuli Rustinawati, 40, a lesbian who is the founder and chair of Arus Pelangi, one of Indonesia’s leading LGBT organizations.
Rustinawati launched a global fundraising campaign to support Indonesia’s LGBT community May 3 and her organization is being honored by the global LGBT rights organization, OutRight Action International, at the United Nations May 16.
In an email interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Rustinawati called the award “a very big honor.”
She will receive the Felipa De Souza Award at OutRight’s Celebration of Courage gala. “It really means to us … proof that you are not alone,” she said. “It makes us more proud to be our self and fight for our rights.”
Rustinawati is setting up a foundation for sexual orientation and gender variant human rights defenders that will provide an emergency assistance program for its safe house, relocation assistance, a network with other human rights organizations, and an information and referral hotline. The foundation is also launching “You Are Not Alone,” a campaign similar to the It Gets Better campaign that is popular in the United States, to educate people about LGBTs and encourage more queer people to be visible.
Working with Los Angeles-based Alturi, an international LGBT rights organization that is also working with Human Rights Watch and OutRight, Rustinawati hopes to raise $25,000 by the end of the month. The funds would be used to support Arus Pelangi’s emergency program to protect the most vulnerable of Indonesia’s LGBT community through the end of this year, said Stephen Roth, co-founder of Alturi.
During the past three months Indonesian politicians have vowed to criminalize homosexuality; ban LGBT people from receiving education, employment, access to health care, and housing; called for the removal of gay characters on popular TV shows; and called upon tech companies to remove same-sex emojis from smartphone apps and social media.
“Being LGBTIQ in Indonesia, a country with the biggest Muslim population in the world, has never been easy,” wrote Rustinawati.
In spite of the country’s political leaders touting Indonesia as the “most-tolerant Muslim majority country,” Rustinawati pointed out that it has been far from paradise.
A report published by Arus Pelangi in 2013 revealed that LGBT Indonesians are “suffering never-ending stigma, discrimination and even violence.”
The report found that 89.3 percent of LGBT Indonesians have experienced violence. The types of violence LGBT Indonesians are afflicted with include psychological violence (79.1 percent), physical violence (46.3 percent), and economic (26.3 percent), sexual (45.1 percent), and cultural violence (63.3).
Social attitudes and stigma caused by widely held beliefs that LGBT people are “against religious values,” are “sinners,” and “abnormal” is prominent. Those beliefs are perpetuated by Indonesia’s political leaders and spread by mass media, which Rustinawati, who founded Arus Pelangi in 2006, described as part of the problem.
Fear and loathing in Indonesia
A prime example is the most recent surge in anti-LGBT rhetoric from Indonesia’s government officials that started in January when an informal academic counseling facility came to their attention. The Support Group and Resource Center of the University of Indonesia’s LGBT Peer Support Network was “misunderstood as an attempt by LGBT people to take root in Indonesian university,” wrote Rustinawati.
She explained that the group is simply a gathering of individuals at the university who “wish to know and deepen their knowledge on gender and sexuality issues.”
However, that isn’t how Indonesian officials took the group’s activities. Officials became incensed and publicly made “unconstitutional” comments, she said, adding that Muhammad Nasir, technology, research and higher education minister, said that “LGBT [people] shall be barred from campuses.” The media sensationalized those comments, making them go “viral,” wrote Rustinawati.
“The statement creates a domino effect in form of other unconstitutional statements, massive media publication against LGBT[s], as well as creating rage within the society,” wrote Rustinawati.
The results have been three months of gay bashing by Indonesian officials in the media. In February, a series of LGBT human rights workshops was raided.
Nasir and Tengku Zulkarnain, the secretary-general of the Indonesian Ulema Council, and Chairman of House Commission VIII Saleh Partaonan Daulay, attacked the United Nations Development Program.
Zulkarnain declared the program was an initiative that would “destroy Indonesian culture.” Daulay, according to media reports, added that the UNDP would be inappropriate in Indonesia, because “Indonesian cultures and religions reject LGBT.”
A human rights meeting that Rustinawati’s organization produced drew 25 police officers, even though it was within regulations for private events, and organizers were forced to close it.
Sheltering in place
The crackdowns have caused widespread fear within Indonesia’s LGBT community.
“This is mak[ing] LGBTI peoples afraid, living in the fear, feeling unsecure, stress … especially for those who are come out as LGBT and also LGBTI human rights defenders,” wrote Rustinawati, who set up a safe house in the Indonesian capital city, Jakarta.
The house is for the activists and leaders who are on the frontlines of the movement — some of the leaders are on a list of “intolerant groups” and have received serious threats, wrote Rustinawati. The activists are heavily vetted before being relocated to the house.
“It doesn’t mean we are in [a] better situation. We [are] still working and keep watching. One day [the activists] will be back to their place to continue working,” wrote Rustinawati.
Alturi’s Roth said the situation in Indonesia is one of the reasons his organization developed a rapid response program.
“This is really a good example of our model to bring attention and resources to gay activists around the world and the important work that they are doing,” Roth told the B.A.R., adding that the “rapid response campaign” immediately targets communities with the “greatest need.”
“Arus Pelangi has provided a critically important voice for the LGBTI community in Indonesia for more than 10 years,” said Roth. “When this current backlash against LGBTI people began they quickly sprang into action.”
However, the emergency support that Arus Pelangi has been providing has put a “strain on their resources,” he said.
“We’re asking Americans and other members of the international community to make a small contribution to help them continue this important work,” Roth said.
The campaign is complementary to Alturi’s plans for longer term funding projects, he added.
Arus Pelangi is sure to get a big boost at the OutRight gala.
Bisexual actor Alan Cumming will host the event, which will be attended by India’s Crown Prince Manvedra Singh Gohil. Others who will receive recognition include Randy Berry, U.S. special envoy for the human rights of LGBTI People; Dan Bross of Microsoft; and the UN Free and Equal Campaign. Awards will be presented by celebrity stylist Carson Kressley.
For more information, visit http://www.alturi.org/indonesia_campaign and http://www.outrightinternational.org/events/celebration-courage-2016.
Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at WhatsApp: 415-517-7239, or Skype: heather.cassell, or oitwnews@gmail.com.
