In Indonesia, it is a common practice for the police to conduct raids before the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan to curb nightlife excesses.

However, something out of the ordinary occurred on Sunday night when the North Jakarta Police raided a gym in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, less than a week before the start of Ramadhan, and arrested 141 men inside the three-story building. The police alleged that the men had been involved in a gay sex party.

The arrest operation has caused surprise given the large number of people the police rounded up. Of the men arrested, 10 have been named suspects.

According to North Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr Dwiyono, the gym had been operating for three years but the police had only become aware of suspicious activities on the premises in the past year.

“When we conducted the raid, we found out that the permit for this ‘gym’ was actually for a place of entertainment. There were no signs indicating that the building was being used as a gym apart from a small sign that displayed the gym’s name,” Dwiyono said.

As of Monday afternoon, the 141 arrested men were still undergoing questioning at the North Jakarta Police headquarters.

The suspects have been charged under Articles 30 and 36 of the 2008 Pornography Law, which carry a maximum sentence of six and 10 years’ imprisonment, respectively.

The raid has led to outcry from legal aid groups and minority rights’ supporters. A coalition of advocates and defenders of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual (LGBT) rights voiced their anger at the raid.

The coalition, which consists of 15 organizations, including the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta), the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), Jakarta-based Community Legal Aid Institute, LBH Masyarakat and LGBT rights group Arus Pelangi, has described the raid as “arbitrary.”

“The arrests were based upon allegations of ‘gay prostitution,’ which is yet to be regulated in this country,” it said in a joint statement.

“The raid sets a bad precedent for other groups of gender and sexual minorities. It was conducted against [an individual’s] most private affairs and, therefore, can be seen as a reference to [how the police deal] with cases of public violence,” said the statement.

The coalition also lambasted the police’s failure to protect the identities and images of the detained men, which have been leaked to the general public.

Many of the leaked photographs clearly showed detainees’ faces as they were herded in various states of undress to the police headquarters. “The men were dehumanized as they were not given any chance to get dressed during the raid. Irresponsible people also took their pictures and videos and made them public. Such actions robbed the men of their privacy,” said Lini Zurlia, an activist with Arus Pelangi.

Lini said the police tended to exaggerate the issue. “Minority groups can be considered as vulnerable [to controversy], so they blow the news up.”

North Jakarta Police spokesman Comr. Sungkono said the leak of the suspects’ identities was the result of “procedural errors” by police officers in charge of the arrest.

This was not the first time the police have conducted raids on allegedly gay groups. On Nov. 28, 2016, the Pancoran Police in South Jakarta, along with some 50 members of hard-line Muslim organization the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), burst into an apartment block in Kalibata, where a meeting of a gay group was reportedly taking place. (dea)

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