Indonesia rejects ban on sex outside marriage

Indonesia’s constitutional court yesterday turned down a petition to have extramarital sex banned, part of an ongoing culture war in the world’s biggest Muslim democracy.

A 5-4 majority of judges voted to reject the request made by a group called the Family Love Alliance, which said it wanted the law to categorise adultery to mean any relationship that involves sex outside marriage, not just married people having affairs.

Indonesia’s 13,000 islands are home to almost 210million Muslims – more than any other country.