Jakarta – Indonesian lawyers have criticised plans by the Justice Ministry to criminalise sex outside of marriage and some sexual acts by minors, a report said yesterday.

The ministry is drafting an amendment to the criminal code to include acts not currently categorised as crimes but seen as immoral. These include living together and sex outside of marriage.

Indonesia Bar Association chairman Gayus Limbuun was quoted by the Kompas newspaper as saying that the state should not interfere in citizens' sexual behaviour. "I need to make it clear that all criminal offences are ethical offences but not all ethical and moral offences are crimes," he said.

The secretary-general of the Indonesian Lawyers' Association, Mr Suhardi, warned that people could take the law into their own hands if the plan was adopted. "If cohabitation becomes a crime, it will be a pretext for people who have a holier- than-thou attitude to raid other people. This is dangerous," he was quoted as saying.

The ministry's move is apparently in response to a clamour by some Muslim groups and political parties for the introduction of Islamic law.

The current criminal code is a collection of laws mostly adopted from the Dutch colonial era. Ministry officials have said that in addition to the Dutch colonial law, the proposed amended code will also adopt Islamic law, international conventions and customary laws.

The draft proposes that a couple found guilty of cohabitation be punished by up to two years in jail. A man who impregnates a woman but refuses to marry her could spend up to five years in prison. For those aged under 18, sodomy and oral sex would be punishable by anything from three to 12 years in jail and homosexual activity would be punishable by up to seven years in jail.

A ministry spokesman said sodomy, oral sex and homosexual acts would not be an offence for adults. In the case of cohabitation, Justice Ministry official Abdul Gani Abdullah told Reuters: "If society chooses not to do anything and has no objection to any cohabitation, for example, then it is not a crime." He said people would need to lodge complaints before the authorities reacted.

Muslim leaders, including experts in syariah law, had been consulted over the draft revisions, he added. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation but Islam is not the state religion and the country in general practises a tolerant version of the faith.