ABSTRACT
On October 30, 2008, after more than 10 years of debate, the Indonesian House of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, or DPR) ratified a new far-reaching Anti-Pornography Law, No. 44 of 2008, in an attempt to introduce conservative interpretations of shari’ah by stealth. If fully enforced, the new Law could criminalize much sexuality, tightly censor the arts and media, prohibit much traditional cultural expression, and force women to cover up almost completely, thus largely excluding them from public space. Indeed, on New Year’s Eve 2009, a few months after the Law was enacted, four female dancers (and two men, namely their agent and the club manager) were arrested for “dirty dancing” in a Bandung nightclub act and later sentenced to two-and-a-half months’ imprisonment. They were probably the first ordinary Indonesians to be tried under the Law, and it has since been applied to celebrities in the high profile “Ariel/Peter Porn” sex video incident (Suryakusuma 2010).1 What does this all mean for Indonesia and the broader “chicken or egg” question about the relationship between law reform and social change that is a key theme of this volume?
