INDONESIA — Although its models wore more than those who appear in the average American magazine — or even other publications easily available on the Indonesian marketplace — conservative Muslims viewed the country’s first-ever custom-designed version of Playboy magazine as a threat to the country’s morality. Emboldened by a recent guilty verdict against its editor, many of those conservatives are now demanding his death.Facing the possibility of a two-year jail sentence for supposedly violating the moral norms of the most Muslim-populated nation on earth, Erwin Arnada is seen by more than 150 members of the Indonesian People Forum (IPF) as a major danger to the citizenry. Reuters reports that IPF members chanted “hang him, hang him” upon hearing the guilty verdict.
South Jakarta District Court prosecutor Resni Muchtar, who announced that Arnada had been “found guilty for violating moral norms that spark people unrest,” also stated that the maximum punishment allowed is two years and eight months in prison.
When the first issue of the Indonesian version of Playboy hit the stands, it inspired protests among those who believed its contents were pornographic, in spite of a lack of nudity — and the fact that other magazines available to Indonesians are more risqué.
Among the magazine’s detractors is Abu Bakar Bashir, a Muslim cleric who believes that the prosecution was not aggressive enough in its pursuit of charges against Arnada. Bashir was found guilty of a deadly 2002 Bali bombing that killed more than 200 people, including 88 Australians. His conviction was overturned by the Indonesian Supreme Court, however.
“The prosecution’s demand does not match the damage that Playboy has inflicted,” Bashir insisted prior to the announcement of Arnada’s guilt.
According to Muchtar’s courtroom arguments, “The pictures selected by the defendant were improper for publication because they violated decency and aroused lust.”
Approximately 85-percent of Indonesia’s 220 million citizens are Muslim. The current debate concerning Playboy’s perceived impact upon Indonesian morality is part of a larger social dialogue playing out concerning the place of Islam in the mostly moderate nation’s public realm.
