Indonesia classifies LGBTQ as a 'non-military threat'

President Prabowo Subianto signed a regulation last October that labels LGBTQ activity a "non-military threat" to national defence. The move has drawn sharp attention from analysts abroad, who warn it could strengthen an alliance between the military and conservative Islamic groups at the expense of the country's most vulnerable people. Indonesia at Melbourne, a research site run by University of Melbourne scholars, published the analysis this week.

Presidential Regulation 111 of 2025 divides threats to the state into three kinds: military, non-military, and hybrid. "Spreading the culture of LGBTQ" sits in the non-military category, alongside spreading banned ideologies and atheism. This is a new feature that did not appear in the predecessor regulation signed by former President Joko Widodo in 2021. The regulation is written as a defence policy, but the author argues its vague wording can easily be misused to target and silence people.

The timing is telling. Prabowo signed it in October 2025, shortly after large riots that involved conflict between elite groups. The author argues the regulation may be less about real security threats and more about helping elites rebuild alliances, in particular with conservative Islamic figures Prabowo lost support from when he joined Jokowi's cabinet in 2019. The Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI) is now preparing a draft law to criminalise LGBTQ activity, and the author warns that a military-MUI alliance could turn homophobic sentiment into real persecution.

The danger, the analysis says, rarely touches the elite who drive these narratives. It lands hardest on ordinary people. A group of vigilantes recently "hunted" local transgender people in Bogor, West Java, claiming they were cleansing the city. The article's closing warning is blunt: framing LGBTQ people as a security threat opens the door for security forces to invade everyone's privacy, not just the community they target.

Why it matters

If you are an LGBTQ Indonesian, this regulation makes you officially labelled a national security threat by your own government, which gives police and vigilantes a justification that did not exist in law before. For everyone else, the regulation sets a precedent: if the state can declare any group a "non-military threat" without clear evidence or court review, no minority is safe from the same treatment. Watch whether parliament takes up MUI's draft law, and whether the military starts acting on the new powers the regulation gives it.