Associated Press Posted online: Friday, April 07, 2006 at 1503 hours IST Updated: Friday, April 07, 2006 at 1510 hours IST
Jakarta, April 7: Couples kissing in public for longer than five minutes could soon face arrest in an Indonesian city as part of the proposed laws cracking down on behaviour seen as un-Islamic, media reports said on Friday.
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation, but it does not enforce Islamic Shariah law on a national level. But in recent years, several regions have issued bylaws to regulate personal behaviour in line with Islamic morality.
Tangerang on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, has considered a draft law that would ban couples from ‘constant lip-to-lip kissing for more than five minutes’ in public, Koran Tempo daily paper quoted from a copy of the Bill.
The law would also ban couples from touching each other in a sensual way, and opening each others clothing, it said. The paper said violators would face ‘arrest’, but gave no details.
“Don’t dramatise this, we are not oppressors,” city official Ahmad Lutfi was quoted as saying when asked whether people enforcing the law would be equipped with stopwatches to time public clinches.
Laws proposed by Islamic clerics currently being debated in Parliament would also ban kissing in public, as well as erotic art and pornography. They are facing opposition from nationalist lawmakers, who form a majority in the House.
Tangerang in 2005 introduced laws banning women from being on the street alone after dark as part of moves to stop prostitution. The regulation has been criticised by humans rights groups and women activists.
Despite moves to popularise a conservative brand of Islam, most of Indonesia’s 200 million Muslims practice a moderate form of the faith and are tolerant of other faiths.
