Putri Prameshwari, Jakarta – The head of the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front says he has ordered his members to find Erwin Arnada, the former editor of the Indonesian edition of Playboy magazine.

"This is an instruction," said Habib Rizieq, chairman of the militant group, known as the FPI. "Members of the FPI, as well as the public, must arrest Erwin if they see him on the street." Prosecutors are awaiting written confirmation from the Supreme Court that it has convicted Erwin of indecency charges and sentenced him to two years in jail.

Erwin, writing on his account on the social networking Web site Twitter, said on Thursday that "Criminalization of the press is a threat to the media and people who dare to speak and to create." He also said that, "What Playboy sells is quality not porn pictures."

The Indonesian edition of the magazine contained no nudity and was considered to be much tamer than other legal magazines available for sale in Indonesia, where illegal pornographic films and magazines can be easily purchased.

Rizieq also used the news conference at FPI headquarters in Central Jakarta on Thursday to clarify how the group had come to be in the possession of a stack of Playboy magazines.

Police raided the group's headquarters after its attack on members of the National Alliance for Religious Freedom, who were holding a peaceful rally at the National Monument (Monas) on June 1, 2008. Both Rizieq and FPI commander Munarman were jailed for their roles in the unprovoked violence.

Rizieq said the magazines found during the raid were "evidence". "We collected five editions of Playboy magazine for evidence purposes," he said, "it is not true that we collected them for personal reasons."

He said Playboy was not the only magazine the FPI was targeting, saying that since 2004 they had reported 25 adult magazines to Jakarta police. "However, they only took Playboy to trial for reasons that we do not know."