Norimitsu Onishi, Bandung – Known during colonial times as the "Paris of Java," this city is famous for its universities, cuisine, fashion and night life. But there is a movement to remove those aspects of the city's centuries-old Sundanese culture considered non-Islamic.

The recent arrest of four women for "sexy dancing" during a New Year's Eve party at the Belair Coyote Bar and Restaurant has raised concerns that it may be a prelude to wider restrictions here and elsewhere in the country.

The women, as well as a manager and an event organizer, could be the first to be charged under the one-year-old Anti-Pornography Law, which bans public displays of flesh.

Though a couple of weeks have passed since the arrests, it was still not clear what happened at Belair, which showcased bikini-clad women dancing on a bar top – like the waitresses in the movie "Coyote Ugly."

Arman Achdiat, the Bandung Police's chief of detectives, said the authorities had received complaints, via text messages, that the dancers had gone beyond bikini dancing and offered customers flashes of full nudity. "This happened at private table dances," Achdiat said. He declined to say whether investigators caught the dancers in the act.

Holding a 441-page copy of the Anti-Pornography Law, Achdiat, 38, said the dancers needed to be questioned further to determine whether to charge them under the Criminal Code or the more severe Anti-Pornography Law, which could lead to 10 years in prison for the dancers and 15 for the manager and organizer.

Clubs like Belair came to Bandung more than a decade ago, and about 10 now offer what is known here as "sexy dancing," often featuring some nudity, said Budi Rajab, 49, a sociologist and expert on Bandung at Padjadjaran University here. Though new, the clubs recalled at least part of this easygoing city's history.

"There's always been some debate over why Bandung was called the Paris of Java," Rajab said. "Was it the cool weather? Or was it because the women here were considered more beautiful? When I examined colonial-era documents, it was clear that it was the beautiful women."

But just as the power of religious and political conservatives has grown nationwide in the past decade, there has been a movement here to take the Paris out of Bandung. Dada Rosada, the two-term mayor, has tried to close the city's old red-light district, Saritem.

"It existed for 200 years and I shut it down," Rosada said, adding that he wanted to keep gambling and sexy dancing out of the city. "If people want gambling, they can go to Singapore or Malaysia. If they want sex, they can go to Thailand."

Despite the mayor's crackdown, Saritem has come back to life, though business has yet to recover fully. On a recent evening there were few customers in the district's warren of narrow streets, where family-owned brothels employed young women from rural Java.

"A lot of people think Saritem is still closed, or they're afraid to come," said Rully, 38.

Rully, whose family has worked in Saritem for four generations, waited for customers outside his home, chatting with a woman selling deep-fried vegetables out of her stall.

Though Saritem has survived, Hafizh Utsman, 70, the leader of the West Java branch of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, the country's leading clerical organization, described Rosada as the best mayor in Bandung's modern history.

"We are trying to eliminate the non-Islamic parts of West Java's traditional culture," Utsman said. For example, he said that participants at weddings were urged to celebrate by reciting Koranic verses, not by dancing, as is the custom here.

To that end, the governor of West Java, where Bandung is located, cited the Anti-Pornography Law to criticize a local dance called jaipong as being too sensual. The dance, which is rooted in West Java's Sundanese culture, features the graceful movements of the arms and hands as well as swinging of the hips.

Fearing that the Sundanese culture was under attack, dancer Nanu Munajah Dahlan, 49, formed a jaipong support group in Bandung's outskirts. In recent years, he said, Sundanese culture has ceded ground to Muslim fundamentalists. For example, at official events, the kecapi, a Sundanese stringed instrument, was played less often than the rebana, a drum used in Islamic music.

At official events featuring jaipong dancers, government officials pressed organizers to tone down the dance's sensuality. But Nanu refused and, in a recent after-school dance lesson, he was pursuing his protest as elementary and secondary school girls accompanied by their mothers came to practice jaipong.

The girls danced to songs about the flower of a yam or a tiger awaking from a deep sleep. Jaipong dancers, Nanu said, represent the goddess of rice. Her movements symbolized her fertility and that of the land.

"I'm Muslim, but I also want to keep our traditional culture," Nanu said. He feared, though, that the arrest for "sexy dancing" under the Anti-Pornography Law could be only the beginning. "I'm worried that we could be next," he said.