Hardline Muslims want ex-editor of Playboy Indonesia jailed

Aug 26, 2010, 12:43 GMT

Jakarta - A hardline Islamic group Thursday told its members to hunt the former editor of the now-defunct Playboy Indonesia magazine after the Supreme Court found him guilty of indecency.

Two issues of Playboy Indonesia hit the newsstands in 2006 but the magazine ceased publication after a public outcry, even though it carried no nudity.

Chief editor Erwin Arnada was arrested and went on trial but the court dismissed indecency charges against him three years ago.

The appeals court overturned the ruling and sentenced him to two years in prison. Prosecutors said they would send Arnada to jail once they receive documents from the Supreme Court upholding the ruling.

'We have asked our members to arrest Erwin Arnada and hand him over to the prosecutors' office,' said Ahmad Sobri Lubis, a leader of the Islamic Defenders' Front, a hardline group known for past attacks on nightclubs.

Arnada said his conviction was an attack on press freedom.

'It's not about Playboy anymore but a threat to freedom of expression,' Arnada wrote on the microblogging site Twitter.

'I'm not a fugitive and I'm not a coward,' he said.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, passed a pornography bill in 2008 and recently launched a campaign to block pornographic content on the internet.

Liberal Indonesians have criticized Arnada's prosecution, arguing that authorities should have instead targeted pornographic DVDs sold openly in Jakarta and other major cities.