Indonesia's parliament has passed an anti-pornography law despite furious opposition to it.
Islamic parties said the law was needed to protect women and children against exploitation and to curb increasing immorality in Indonesian society.
The law would ban images, gestures or talk deemed to be pornographic.
Artists, women's groups and non-Muslim minorities said they could be victimised under the law and that traditional practices could be banned.
The law has prompted
protests across Indonesia, but particularly on the predominantly Hindu island of Bali - a favourite destination for tourists.
Critics particularly do not like a provision in the bill that would allow members of the public to participate in
preventing the spread of obscenity. We're worried it will be used by hard-liners who say they want to control morality, Baby Jim Aditya, a women's rights activist, told Associated Press news agency.
This law will ensure that Islam is
preserved and guaranteed, said Hakim Sori Muda Borhan, a member of parliament from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democratic Party.
The bill must be signed by the president before it comes into effect.
Violators face up to 12
years in prison and hefty fines.
Indonesian authorities will prosecute four exotic dancers arrested at clubs on New Year's Eve for allegedly violating a new anti-pornography law, a police spokesman has said.
The female dancers and two male club managers were detained in the city
of Bandung said West Java provincial police spokesman Col. Dade Ahmad. They appeared to have been preparing for a striptease and were wearing sexy clothing, Ahmad said, when the police raided the Bellair Cafe and the Music Lounge after midnight.
Indonesia's 2008 anti-pornography law was pushed through parliament by conservative Muslim parties, but opposed by rights groups that argue it criminalizes traditional dance and art, particularly in far flung provinces where partial nudity is
culturally accepted.
Ahmad said that they could be sentenced to prison terms of five to 10 years if convicted. Ahmad said the six will be the first people prosecuted under the law in Bandung.
Bandung Mayor Dada Rosada said he was also
considering revoking the cafes' operating permits.
The arrest of four women for sexy dancing during a Hogmanay party in Bandung has raised worries this may be the prelude to wider Islamist restrictions in Indonesia. The women, as well as a manager and event organiser, could become the
first people charged under a one-year-old anti-pornography law banning public displays of naked flesh.
The law was brought in with the backing of the small but influential Islamist political parties in the country. Critics said the parties' real
intention was to use the law to spread fundamentalist Islam to control artistic and cultural expression in a multicultural society. The law, they warned, threatens pre-Islamic cultures, which have long co-existed with moderate Islam.
Hafizh
Utsman, leader of the West Java branch of the Indonesian Ulama Council, the leading clerical organisation, is pleased with Islam's growing influence in Bandung, and would like to see a more widespread crackdown: We are trying to eliminate the
non-Islamic parts of West Java's traditional culture, to make it more Islamic, Utsman boasted. For example, he said that participants at weddings are urged to celebrate by reciting Koranic verses, not by dancing, as is the custom.
Though a
couple of weeks have passed since the arrests, it was still not clear what happened at Belair, which showcased bikini-clad women dancing on a bar counter.
Arman Achdiat, the Bandung police chief of detectives, said the authorities had received
complaints, via text messages, that the dancers had gone beyond bikini dancing and offered customers flashes of full nudity. This happened at private table dances, said Achdiat, declining to say whether investigators caught the dancers in the act.
Holding a copy of the anti-pornography law, Achdiat said more questioning of the dancers was needed to determine whether to charge them under the criminal law or the more severe anti-pornography law, which entails punishment of up to 10 years in
prison for the dancers and 15 years for the manager and organiser.
Clubs such as Belair came to Saritem in Bandung more than a decade ago, and about 10 now offer what is known here as sexy dancing, often featuring some nudity, said Budi
Rajab, a sociologist and expert on Bandung at the local Padjadjaran University.
The crackdown seems to be working and Saritem's business has yet to recover fully. On a recent evening there were few customers in the district's warren of narrow
streets, where family-owned brothels employed young women from rural Java. A lot of people think Saritem is still closed, or they're afraid to come, said Rully, whose family has worked in Saritem for four generations.
Indonesian authorities will prosecute four exotic dancers arrested at clubs on New Year's Eve for allegedly violating a new anti-pornography law, a police spokesman has said. 