Communication and Information Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring is pressing on with his antipornography campaign, calling all regional heads across the country to launch efforts to crack down on teenagers who viewed pornographic acts.

"Pornography eradication is not the duty of the central government only. All governors, district heads and mayors to village heads must also be responsible for fighting pornographic acts," he said as quoted by Antara over the weekend.

Tifatul said that his ministry had done its part, including campaigning to raise awareness among young people about the moral dangers posed by pornography. "We have also blocked more than 1 million pornographic sites usually visited by teenagers across the country," he claimed.

Tifatul, who comes from the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said that regional heads played a key role in lowering rates of pornography consumption within the country because they knew their region well.

"We should build a synergy to prevent our youth's morality from being ruined because of pornography. We should do this if we want to have a nation with high morality and nobility in the future," he said.

Tifatul admitted that closing porn sites would not be enough, saying that the fight against porn would have to reach the "hearts and minds" of the nation's teenagers.

"If their hearts and minds are still with the porn sites, then when they are in countries that don't block porn sites they will be trapped again," he said.

Tifaul's aggressive campaign to curb pornography has drawn criticism from human rights activists, accusing him of focusing too many resources of his ministry on the issue and neglecting other problems.

He also caught flak after a lawmaker from his party was caught watching porn during a plenary session of the House of Representatives. Tifatul is no stranger to controversy, having garnered global ridicule in an infamous episode in which he claimed he was forced to shake Michelle Obama's hand during the visit of US President Barack Obama to Indonesia in November.

Despite his earlier claims that he would never touch a female he did not know due to his religious values, he later appeared eager to get to grips with the US first lady.