Shocking video shows violent mob chasing & attacking trans woman on street

Brazen vigilantes filmed themselves kicking, punching, and dousing her with urine.

In Indonesia this week, viral video captured one of a number of brazen attacks by a vigilante group dedicated to eradicating LGBTQ+ people in the Muslim-majority nation. The incident darkened the national debate raging over the community’s place in the country.

The attacks in Bogor City on the island of Java reportedly occurred under the banner of the so-called Bogor Bersih LGBTQ movement, which translates to “Bogor free of LGBTQ.”

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The viral video posted to the group’s social media shows a mob of young men chasing a transgender woman down a street in the city, kicking and punching her. The men also filmed themselves spraying the victim with what appeared to be urine from a bottle, the Malaysian news outlet The Star reports.

At least 10 transgender women have been subjected to three separate mob attacks in Bogor over the last two months, according to Amnesty International Indonesia.

Indonesian human rights group Arus Pelangi said in a news conference about the attacks that 66 cases of violence involving 97 members of the queer community were recorded in 2025, an increase of 135% from the year before.

“There has been a sharp increase in hate speech and discrimination in health and education services in recent months, along with more persecution of LGBTQ people and advocates, worsened by the continued push to criminalize the community,” activist Riska Carolina of the Indonesian Women’s Alliance told the assembled press.

Under Indonesian law, homosexuality and consensual same-sex relations are not criminal offenses. An exception is Aceh province, where citizens are subject to Islamic criminal law, which punishes both.

Indonesia’s Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai condemned the attacks, as well, saying the perpetrators should not resort to vigilante violence against the queer community.

“These actions cannot be tolerated,” Pigai told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. “I urge the public not to resort to vigilantism.”

Separately, public demonstrations denouncing the LGBTQ+ community are growing, sometimes with local governments’ blessing or active endorsement.

In Padang, West Sumatra, government officials joined residents in a June action protesting the existence of LGBTQ+ people in the province. West Sumatra Police and a local council invited participants to sign a one-kilometer-long banner denouncing same-sex relations and the promotion of LGBTQ+ culture in West Sumatra, and calling for them to be “eradicated.”

Local officials’ participation in demonstrations like those highlights a scale tipping toward the Indonesian government’s intolerance of the LGBTQ+ community.

The recent attacks and public demonstrations follow an initially little-noticed presidential order issued last year that activists say is stoking the anti-LGBTQ+ animus in the country, and which runs contrary to the government’s official policy respecting the rights of all Indonesians.

The order, signed by President Prabowo Subianto, was slipped into a 70-page presidential regulation on national defense policy in October. It labeled “promotion of LGBT culture” as a non-military threat to the nation, alongside illegal trafficking, natural resource theft, terrorism, atheism, and radicalism.

The order earned new scrutiny last month after a university student publication acknowledged Pride Month and defended LGBTQ+ people by invoking a traditional Indonesian ideology which is comprised of belief in one God, civilized humanity, national unity, democracy, and social justice. The linkage provoked a backlash among LGBTQ+ opponents.

Soon after, news broke that Indonesia’s top Islamic scholars’ body was drafting a bill to criminalize LGBTQ-related conduct for Indonesia’s Parliament.

“Deviant activities, such as same-sex parties, are now increasingly being displayed openly in public without any sense of shame,” said the Islamic group’s deputy chairman.

“If there are no legal penalties at all, it eventually becomes normal. We should not normalize it. Punishment helps people understand that it is not normal,” he added.

Human Rights Minister Pigai maintains that the government’s position respecting the rights of all Indonesians hasn’t changed.

“As Indonesian citizens, LGBTQ people are entitled to education, employment, healthcare and other public services without restrictions, segregation, or discrimination,” he told Singapore-based Channel News Asia in an interview.

However, he added, “The state retains the authority to restrict the exercise of certain rights in defense of broader interests, including public morality.”

“Whether LGBTQ threatens national integration is still debatable, depending on one’s perspective. But the state is also allowed to impose restrictions when it concerns the nation’s morality,” he said.

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