Jakarta:
Indonesian police have charged a DJ with violating the country’s controversial pornography law following the 28-year-old staged a street protest against COVID-19 movement curbs dressed in a mask and red two-piece bikini earlier this week.
Dinar Candy was seen in footage broadly shared on social media standing by the side of a Jakarta road holding a sign which stated she was stressed by Indonesia’s extension of movement restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
“Her actions did not heed cultural and religious norms,” Azis Andriansyah, police chief for the Indonesian capital’s southern districts, stated in comments aired by the Kompas Television broadcaster on Thursday. She had not been detained, Azis added.
South Jakarta police and Dinar Candy did not respond to requests for comment. Dinar Candy’s lawyer, Acong Latief, told Reuters her actions may well have been motivated by anxiety.
Muslim majority Indonesia has in current years seen a rise in conservatism, with religious groups demanding a bigger function for Islam in politics and society. Its controversial pornography law carries a maximum punishment of 10 years imprisonment or a 5 billion rupiah ($350,000) fine.
Indonesia has because July been battling a devastating second wave of COVID-19 infections driven by the hugely contagious Delta variant of the virus. This week, President Joko Widodo extended social distancing measures till August 9.
The Southeast Asian nation passed a grim milestone https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/indonesia-passes-grim-milestone-over-100000-covid-19-deaths-2021-08-04 of more than one hundred,000 deaths on Wednesday.
Maidina Rahmawati, a researcher at the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), a Jakarta-based legal activist group, stated Dinar Candy’s stunt need to be understood as a protest, not pornography.
“This is very dangerous and could lead to arbitrary and excessive enforcement, or over-criminalisation,” she stated.
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