Indonesian rubber plantation workers claim self-defence after shooting, beheading endangered orangutan

Two Indonesian men arrested for shooting an orangutan multiple times and then decapitating it before tossing the corpse into a river, have told investigators they acted in self-defence, police said on Thursday.
The suspects, both rubber plantation workers on the island of Borneo, admitted they killed the critically endangered male Bornean orangutan whose headless body was found last month.
Its hair was burned off its body which was riddled with at least 17 bullet wounds.
Pictures of the…

Indonesia poised to criminalise extramarital sex, which would include gay relationships, amid rising tide of religious conservatism

Riding a tsunami of moral conservatism and anti-gay prejudice, Indonesia’s Islamic political parties appear on the cusp of a major victory: outlawing all sex outside marriage.
Revisions to Indonesia’s criminal code being considered by Parliament would allow prison sentences of up to five years for sex between unmarried people. Those changes would also criminalise gay sex, the bugbear of Indonesia’s Islamic and secular political parties.
Rights groups and legal experts fear a…