Alarmed by widespread opposition, Indonesian lawmakers have delayed passage of a controversial anti-pornography bill that critics say would hurt local cultural traditions, lawmakers and media reports said on Friday.
The anti-smut bill aims to shield the young from pornographic material and lewd acts, but also contains provisions that could jail people for kissing in public and criminalize many forms of art or traditional culture that hinge on sensuality.
Some political parties are hoping for its approval this month when the final draft is tabled in parliament. An Islamic party lawmaker has said the bill would be a Ramadan gift.
House Special Committee Chairman Balkan Kaplale confirmed on Friday that the schedule for a plenary session to endorse the bill would be postponed because the committee needed to extend the deliberation period to get more feedback from the public.
“We still need to hold a series of discussions to gather further input after we have conducted public assessment in four provinces. We have set up a technical team to discuss the assessment results,” Yoyoh Yusroh, a member of the special committee deliberating the bill, was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post.
Eva Kusuma Sundari, a lawmaker from the Indonesian Democratic Party Struggle (PDIP), one of two parties opposing the bill, said: “We will make sure that the people’s voice to oppose the bill is accommodated.”
The PDIP of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, along with the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS), have opposed the bill. Both parties walked out of deliberations during the previous plenary session.
Eight other factions in the parliament, including Islamic hardline lawmakers, have responded positively to the bill.
Its main backer is the Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), a new force in Indonesian politics that has caught the eye of mainstream parties as a potential coalition partner after general elections next April.
If passed, the bill — which has been held up in parliament for more than three years — will criminalize all public acts and material capable of raising sexual desires or violating “community morality,” including poetry and music.
Earlier this week, thousands of people on the predominantly Hindu island of Bali staged a rally protesting the bill, arguing that on Bali people see the body as aesthetic while the bill would render the body as an object of sin.
Explicit material is available in Indonesia, and television programs regularly feature bare flesh and sexual innuendo.
Critics say the law could pave the way for vigilante groups acting under the pretext of upholding morality.
They also claim it threatens the right to privacy and the country’s pluralism, and could trigger national disintegration.
Militant Muslim groups in Indonesia, particularly since the fall of the autocratic Suharto government in 1998, have sporadically taken vigilante action against red-light areas or liberal publications that are deemed offensive.
Indonesia restricted access to pornographic and violent sites on the Internet after parliament passed a new information bill early this year.
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