The Indonesian government says it will likely reject 75 recommendations by United Nations member countries to improve human rights abuses in Indonesia. Those recommendations targeted issues such as threats to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, the abusive blasphemy law, and the death penalty. An Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs official described the recommendations as “hard to accept” for reasons including the vague and undefined notion of “Indonesian conditions.”
UN members made the recommendations in May 2017 during the country’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process. Ireland and Sweden recommended that the Indonesian government address anti-LGBT discriminatory laws, Angola and Spain called for the abolition of the death penalty, and the United States and Germany sought the revocation of the blasphemy law. Indonesia must formally respond to those recommendations with a response of “accept” or “note” – the latter signaling an effective rejection of the recommendation – during the next meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in September 2017. Read more via the HRW