Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – The Indonesian parliament approved, on Tuesday, legislative amendments to penal laws, including the issuance of a law criminalizing sex outside marriage, with penalties of up to one year in prison if conviction is proven.
The new law raised the concerns of minorities and progressives in the Muslim-majority country, which has a population of 276.5 million people. The laws will also apply to foreigners in Indonesia, casting a shadow over the country’s important tourism sector.
Cohabitation and apostasy are now offenses that lead to imprisonment in the new amendments, while the offense of blasphemy, which already exists in Indonesian laws, can now carry up to five years in prison.
The laws and amendments were introduced by Justice Minister Yasuna Hamunangan Lawley under President Joko Widodo, despite rights groups warning that they would disproportionately harm women, LGBT people and minorities.
The amendments also stipulated that criticism of the President of Indonesia, the government or other state institutions is illegal.
Andreas Harsono, Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch, warned that the laws could be abused. “The danger of repressive laws is not that they are widely applied, but that they provide a means of selective enforcement,” he said.
Harsono called the new laws “a setback for Indonesia’s already declining religious freedom,” warning that “non-Muslims could be prosecuted and imprisoned.”
The government had defended the new bill before the vote, saying it would “protect the institution of marriage”.