University suspends students over viral lewd chat

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — A leading Indonesian university suspended 16 law students Thursday after a sexually explicit group chat about their female peers went viral, sparking a debate about gender violence in the Muslim-majority country.

Screenshots of a conversation between 16 male students at the University of Indonesia were posted on social media this week, eliciting shock and anger from female peers and a wider societal discussion.

The university said in a statement Thursday it had suspended the young men for two weeks pending an investigation.

“This step was taken as part of the university’s commitment to... maintaining a conducive academic environment,” spokesperson Erwin Agustian Panigoro said in a statement.

The students are accused of having made vulgar and explicit sexual jokes about female peers and lecturers.

One message read “silence means consent,” suggesting that women who don’t verbally refuse a sexual advance are implicitly agreeing to sex.

Days later, a group of women students at the university berated the men in a public forum.

A video of the confrontation, in which the accused men stare at their feet as they are chewed out by women who said they were made to feel unsafe, also went viral.

The university student body is demanding the men be brought before an ethics board and given strict sanctions.