Indonesian lesbian couple chased away
2013-01-16 18:20
Batam - Two women who married in Indonesia by disguising
themselves as a heterosexual couple were chased away from their village after
neighbours discovered they were lesbians, community members said.
Neighbours raided the couple's home on Batam Island near
Singapore after growing suspicious that Musdalifa was a woman because he never
socialised with other men in the village and the couple always kept to
themselves.
"We reject homosexuals here, so last week we raided
their house and saw Musdalifa was obviously a woman. She'd been walking around
in loose men's clothes," Marlina, 34, told AFP on Wednesday.
"We told Musdalifa to leave. They both fled and we
haven't seen them since," said Marlina, who goes by one name.
It was discovered that Musdalifa was really a 23-year-old
woman named Angga Soetjipto, who married her girlfriend Ninies Ramiluningtyas,
41, earlier this month.
The locals complained to the local Religious Affairs
Office, which administers marriages and has reported the case to the Religious
Affairs Ministry.
"There was no way we could have known, because they
both had all the right documents, including a letter of identification from the
village," office head Budi Dharmawan said.
He said the office would consider intensifying customary
pre-marriage counselling to ensure illegal marriages do not slip through the
net again.
Homosexuality is legal in Indonesia, the world's biggest
Muslim-majority nation, though gay marriage is outlawed.
Although the majority of Indonesians practice a moderate
form of Islam, the country's sharia stronghold Aceh province has deliberated
flogging homosexuals and has forced gay and lesbian couples to separate.
