Arghea Desafti Hapsari, Jakarta – In a move condemned by critics as totalitarian, the government announced plans to bar the sales of certain books, just days after the Constitutional Court revoked its authority to ban the distribution of printed material.

The Justice and Human Rights Ministry is currently reviewing around 200 books suspected of carrying content that "pose threats to the country's unity".

Earlier reports said 20 of the books were under strict review that was likely to end in the books' removal from store shelves. The books, the ministry argued, promoted separatism, terrorism and violence.

Ministry official Hafidz Abbas told The Jakarta Post on Friday that the ministry's efforts to study the contents of the books "will definitely lead to" filing of requests to courts to ban the books.

He stressed, however, that legal suits would be a last resort after other measures were taken to "clarify" the content. "What we will do first is to study the contents of the books," he said.

If the government finds the content "tendentious", Hafidz went on, they would first publish other books that countered the contents of the controversial books. Hafidz said that by doing so, the government expected the sales of the "problematic" books to decline and eventually stop.

"We will also approach publishers and inform them of where the books are flawed," he said, adding that publishers would then be coerced to remove the books from bookstores.

University of Indonesia philosophy expert Tommy F. Awuy said, however, that there was no need for the government "to try to look for problems in the books".

"It is a characteristic of a totalitarian state to try to find out how books are going to cause problems in order to dispute them in courts," he told the Post.

The Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled to expunge a 1963 law on book banning. The ruling stripped the government of its authority to ban books deemed controversial, but judges said books could still be banned. They said the decision to remove books from circulation should rest with the courts.

The book banning authority was practiced mostly by the Attorney General's Office, which banned 22 books since 2006, including 13 history textbooks for use in junior and senior high schools.

Yudi Latief of the Reform Institute welcomed the ruling, saying the Constitutional Court had made the right decision by addressing one of the issues that had hindered the development of democracy.

He warned, however, that Indonesia still faced problems with its judiciary system. "Law enforcers often bow to provocation and pressure from groups that use violence," he added.

Yudi said the AGO should lift its ban on books that it had prohibited since the now-revoked law took effect in the old regime.

"These voices need to be heard. In a democracy, there will always be works and publications that are apologetic and side with certain interests or groups. This, I think, makes for a more balanced argument. The public should be the judges of what is true," he added.

The AGO's banning of books began with Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Hoakiau di Indonesia (The Chinese in Indonesia) being one of the very first books to be pulled off shelves. The AGO has banned more than 400 books since then including other works by the late author.

The banning of books stopped when former president Soeharto was toppled, but the practice resumed in 2006.