Armando Siahaan & Ulma Haryanto – Fresh from his moral crusade to block access to pornographic Web sites on BlackBerrys, the minister of communications and information technology says police should now get tough on pornographic DVDs.

Speaking at the State Palace on Friday, Tifatul Sembiring said his ministry was responsible for the "technical aspect" of the antipornography drive and had done its part by cracking down on Internet pornography and strong-arming Research in Motion, BlackBerry's Canadian manufacturer, to install Internet filters.

"If there are porn DVDs out there, then the police should take action," he said in response to a question on what he intended to do about this other widely accessible source of pornography.

He added his ministry was prepared to forward reports from the public. "If you know a place where they sell porn DVDs, you can report it to us and we'll report to the police," he said.

Tifatul warned all Internet service providers to comply with regulations obliging them to filter out pornographic content or face legal consequences.

He said his ministry had not yet checked to see if all ISPs had complied with the requirements, but if any were found in violation of the rule they would be summoned to the ministry and possibly end up in court.

Tifatul added that the conflict over pornography should not be the sole responsibility of the government. "The public should also join in the campaign," he said.

A spokesman from the Jakarta Police said the force was ready to answer the minister's call, saying pornography was "a disease."

Sr. Comr. Baharudin Djafar said the police had been proactive in suppressing pornography, arresting six men for distributing pornographic DVDs last month during a raid in West Jakarta and Tangerang. "From the raid, we seized more than two million porn DVDs and VCDs," he said.

Baharudin said such raids were not part of a regular exercise but rather were carried out "depending on the situation."

"The raid was conducted so that there would be no more porn videos circulating among the public, because they can ruin society – especially children," he said. "From watching porn, [a person can get ideas that can] lead him to rape someone or commit [pedophilia] with the neighbor's children."

He added the Jakarta Police had not yet planned their next raid, and he called on anyone with information about pornographic DVDs being sold in their area to report the matter to the police.

"Officers on duty are also obliged to arrest anyone caught selling the items in a public space," he said.

Given the current "social phenomenon" with respect to pornography consumption, Baharudin said, "There is a need to coordinate with the Information Ministry to eradicate porn."