Indonesia to ban mini-skirts over links to rape

Indonesia's powerful religious affairs minister believes that mini-skirts are pornographic and should be banned under the country’s tough new anti-porn laws.

Minister Suryadharma Ali has been appointed to run Indonesia’s new anti-porn taskforce, announced by president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono earlier this month.

He told reporters in Jakarta yesterday that before deciding what they must ban as pornography, the taskforce would consult widely to come up with “a set of universal criteria”.
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However, “one [criterion] will be when someone wears a skirt above the knee,” according to the Jakarta Post.

"Pornography is something that we can feel ... but we have to make the criteria," said Dr Suryadharma.

However, he did offer some exceptions for places where dress codes differed from those in the Muslim-majority country.

"Of course there are some exception for places like Bali and Papua. Balinese women, for instance, they have unique way of dressing, the upper part of their traditional dress (does not cover their shoulders) but it’s not pornography. They also dance gracefully and it’s not considered pornography. So we have to set criteria of what pornography is."

He did not immediately comment on how tourists and foreign beachgoers in havens such as Bali would be treated under the tough new anti-pornography provisions.

Entrenched corruption is tearing apart the ruling Democratic Party, seeing a number of its senior members under heavy questioning or in jail, and thousands are demonstrating on the streets about fuel price rises and the cost of living, but the Indonesian government’s response has been to crack down hard on short skirts.

Earlier this month, the country’s parliamentary speaker Marzuki Alie announced he would draft rules banning female politicians and staff members from wearing mini skirts, saying, “there have been a lot of rape cases and other immoral acts recently and this is because women aren't wearing appropriate clothes”.

“You know what men are like. Provocative clothing will make them do things."

After that comment, and also yesterday, women's and human rights groups protested strongly against the concentration on women's attire.

A spokeswoman for the National Commission on Violence Against Women, Masruchah, called it a violation of women's rights, adding that sexual harassment and assault had nothing to do with either pornography or the length of women's skirts.

"Many women [who were] raped happened to wear very conservative clothing. They were raped anyway."

The president announced the anti-pornography task force earlier this month in an attempt to remove it entirely from Indonesia. Judging by a recent Google survey, Indonesians consume porn at least as enthusiastically as other people, despite the large majority of Muslims that make up the population.

Mr Yudhoyono put Dr Suryadharma, the religious affairs minister, in charge of the task force’s day to day operation.

The minister is no stranger to controversy. In January he said the Shiite version of Islam, a minority interpretation in Indonesia, was heretical because it deviated from mainstream muslim teaching.

Declaring a sect heretical in Indonesia can be dangerous. Last year a machete-wielding mob attacked and killed three members of the “heretical” Ahmadiyah sect.

Dr Suryadharma’s department is also controversial. In February, Indonesia’s Corruption Eradication Commission questioned the whereabouts of millions of dollars in interest earned on the deposits that pilgrims paid to the department to join the waiting list for a trip to Mecca.

These deposits, added to donations made to the poor, make the religious affairs department the wealthiest in the Indonesian government.