The Ministries of Defence and Trade, as well as the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) were listing job advertisements with the requirements that applicants “must not be mentally disabled and not show sexual orientation or behavioural deviations,” The Jakarta Post reports.
An AGO spokesperson said the office is not interested in “odd” applicants. “I mean, we just want the normal ones, we don’t want [to accept] the odd ones,” he said.
The Indonesian Ombudsman said the Ministry of Trade already revoked the criteria, but that the AGO still uses them.
The executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, Usman Hamid, says the ban on LGBT+ individuals is “an appalling move”. “The discriminatory criteria should be withdrawn immediately. It’s against Indonesia’s constitution, and against Indonesia’s obligations under international human rights law.”
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) calls the restrictions a violation of human rights. “Everyone should be able to do their jobs without paying mind to their sexual orientations or gender identities,” the organisation said in a statement.
Indonesia is known as an unsafe place for LGBT people. Various LGBT+ rights have been violated in recent years. In the Aceh province, for example, gays can be punished with caning. The Indonesian president also wanted to introduce a law that prohibited sex before marriage, which would make sex between two people of the same sex illegal.