Comment: Lessons from Manchester for Indonesia

Reynhard Sinaga, 36, was described as the United Kingdom’s 'most prolific rapist in British legal history'. - AFP

THE world was shocked recently when Indonesian Reynhard Sinaga was convicted of over 159 offenses committed against 48 men between January 2015 and June 2017. The 36-year-old PhD student at Britain’s Leeds University has been named “Britain’s most prolific rapist”.

Very quickly the Indonesian media focused on the criminal’s sexual orientation and several reports even compared his case with that of Ryan from Jombang, East Java. In 2008, Ryan was arrested for suspected murder, later confessing to having killed 11 people, mutilating many of them.

Most Indonesian reports focused extensively on Ryan’s sexual orientation, as if the murderer’s identity as a gay person was the cause of his horrendous crimes. Meanwhile, while most British media outlets mention that Reynhard’s victims were male, they do not discuss his sexual orientation at length. Yet Google Reynhard Sinaga and gay or LGBT, and many reports in Indonesian appear. Indeed, Reyn-hard’s sexual orientation is paraded in the headlines of several Indonesian reports.