Chris Barrett – It's just a few weeks since world leaders converged on Bali for the G20 summit, an event Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, hoped would enhance his country's standing on the global stage.
I visited friends in Jakarta on the weekend, and signs of its G20 leadership were still easy to find, even though the baton has been passed to India, which has assumed the presidency for the next 12 months. From the balcony of a mate's high-rise apartment just south of the city centre it was certainly hard to miss the huge G20 billboard featuring Jokowi's face on the side of another building.
Yet less than a month after the leaders of the world's largest economies flew out of Denpasar, Indonesia's international reputation could be jeopardised by a suite of controversial laws.
A new criminal code passed in parliament this week runs counter to the Muslim majority nation's decades-long promotion of a tolerant, moderate form of Islam.
A ban on sex outside marriage and the expansion of laws for offences such as blasphemy reflect the increasing influence of religious conservatism in politics.
Other legal articles that clamp down on criticism of the president and the government with potential jail terms signify an alarming slide towards authoritarianism, activists believe.
Jokowi has been bidding to attract investment from the likes of Elon Musk and Tesla as part of an ambitious vision to make Indonesia a top-five global economy by 2045.
Countries including the United States, however, have warned of the potential effect these threats to civil liberties and freedom of expression could have on foreign investment.
The Australian government hasn't responded as strongly but, asked if it had concerns about the new laws, including how they could affect foreigners living in Indonesia or travelling there, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said it was "seeking further clarity on the Indonesian Parliament's revisions to the criminal code".
"We understand these revisions will not come into force for three years, and we await further information on how the revisions will be interpreted as implementing regulations are drafted and finalised," DFAT said in a statement to this masthead, adding that it "will continue to monitor the situation closely".
The new code, which could face challenges in the Constitutional Court, wasn't universally derided by local media, which itself could face additional scrutiny under an article governing the spread of so-called fake news which carries a penalty of up to six years in jail if it precipitates a riot.
Media Indonesia, a national daily newspaper, said in its editorial "legislators have attempted to accommodate all aspirations of the citizens". That statement is in line with the explanation given by Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly when the code was given the green light in parliament.
"It's not easy for a multicultural and multi-ethnic country to make a criminal code that can accommodate all interests," Laoly said. Nearly a quarter of a century after the end of Suharto's New Order, however, others are seeing it as an enormous setback to progress.
The ratification of the new penal code "will surely not help in our attempt to become a key player in global politics and the economy," said the Jakarta Post."There is no doubt that Indonesia is now entering the darkest episode of Reformasi, in which illiberalism and religious conservatism come to serve the interests of the elite, undermining democracy and empowering its enemies."
This is my last "What in the World dispatch" for 2022, so I want to thank you for reading this year and wish you a great festive period. I look forward to writing to you again from somewhere in my corner of the world in the new year.