Camelia Pasandaran – In somewhat unusual circumstances, two beautiful North Sulawesi women wearing skirts slit all the way up to their waists and low cut white silk tops performed a traditional dance in front of the nine-member Constitutional Court on Thursday, as part of a legal challenge against the Anti-Pornography Law.
The Tumatenden performance – which is described by Tourism Indonesia as a "nymph love story" – was presented as a symbol of the struggle against the controversial law by a number of groups, including tribal communities from North Sulawesi and women's and legal organizations.
It is the second attempt by the group to have the law struck out after the Constitutional Court rejected a previous legal challenge on a technicality. However, the number of members represented in the lawsuit heard on Thursday had swollen to 47.
Taufik Basari, one of the lawyers representing the group, told the court that the law discriminated against women, who were both the object of the law and the supposed victims. "The patriarchal system, which is still strong in Indonesia, will ensure the law discriminates against women," he said.
Taufik also argued that the law could not be implemented as those who enforced and upheld the law were not ready to do so. "Law enforcers lack an understanding of the porn law," he said. "They are not ready to implement it."
Taufik said it was better to use existing pornography laws under the Criminal Code.
The plaintiffs argued that many articles of the law are flawed. Even from the beginning, the definition of porn itself was said to be shallow and misleading, thus leading to multiple interpretations.
They also protested against Article No. 4 that forbade people from producing, distributing or selling anything that can be categorized as pornography, which stipulates a maximum sanction of 15 years in jail and fines of Rp 7.5 billion ($740,000).
Not long after the Tumatenden dance, Inke Maris, a communications expert testifying on behalf of the government, presented scenes from several mainstream movies, Web sites and pornographic comics as evidence for the judges' consideration.
The judges, mostly Muslims fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, as well as the majority of court staff and observers, squirmed uncomfortably in their seats as the images were displayed on a large screen. Inke, in arguing that children needed better protection from pornography, also referred to the cases of two teenagers jailed for raping younger children.
"Reflecting on the young rapist cases of Zaenal and Dede, children have become the victims of pornography," he said. "That's why we need the law. However, it needs to be revised to allow exceptions."
Mass communications expert Tjipta Lesma, who was also presented by the government as someone with a broad knowledge on pornography, agreed, saying the law was needed but also need to have some exceptions.
"The porn law should exclude five areas," he said. "The fields are art, literature, customs, science and sports. There should be more articles on these exceptions."
Tjipta said that if the law was implemented with the exceptions included, the Tumatenden dance that was presented was not threatened by the porn law. "The dance is pure art and could not be categorized as porn," he said.