Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Legislators have come out in defense of a controversial push by the government to reinstate criminal charges for insulting the president, a provision that was previously struck down for being unconstitutional.

Nurhayati Ali Assegaf, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party at the House of Representatives, said on Sunday that it was essential to restore the article to the Criminal Code to protect the presidency.

"This article will provide protection to the president and protect his human rights," she said during a discussion as quoted by Detik.com.

She added that the president and vice president were "symbols of the country," and that recent popular demonstrations against President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who chairs the Democratic Party, had gotten out of hand with protesters burning his picture.

"It seems we need to instill a sense of respect in the people so that there's no more moral degradation," Nurhayati said. "If [people] keep lampooning and insulting him, it's possible that no one will want to be president. They'll feel it's a lot of hard work just for getting insulted."

The Criminal Code previously included an article that made insulting the president or vice president a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison and Rp 300 million ($31,000) in fines. However, it was struck down in 2006 by the Constitutional Court on the grounds that it infringed on citizens' constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression.

The government is now seeking to reintroduce the article in proposed amendments to the Criminal Code, a draft bill of which was submitted to the House last month for deliberation.

Ahmad Basarah, a legislator on House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs and is responsible for reviewing the proposed amendments, said he also agreed with the move but insisted that the article make a clear distinction between insults and criticism, so that the public could still speak out if criticism was warranted.

"The House and the government must be very careful in deliberating this point because we don't want to have an article that's open to interpretation and that can be used by the authorities to silence critics of the government, like in the New Order era," he said on Sunday.

Ahmad, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), conceded that the Constitution made no explicit prohibition on insulting the president, but argued that it was logical to have such a provision in place.

He previously said the article was necessary to uphold the dignity of the presidency as an institution, if not necessarily of the president as an individual. "We have to have measures protecting the rights of the officeholder and the dignity of the office," he said on Friday.

However, critics have blasted the government's proposal, warning that it risked a return to the heavy-handed ways of Suharto's New Order regime.

Irman Putra Sidin, a state administrative law expert from the University of Indonesia, said on Friday that the government should understand that citizens had a right to criticize public officials, including the president, within the bounds of reason and if the criticism was warranted.