Police in the town of Jepara, Central Java, arrested two event organizers for a motorcycle community party in which at least three girls in bikinis were dancing amidst a raucous crowd on Kartini Beach, footage of which has gone viral recently.
The footage, taken on Saturday, was deemed inappropriate enough for the local police to charge the event organizers for violating Indonesia’s ambiguously worded pornography laws, a crime which carries a maximum 15-year sentence. In the footage that has been circulating online, the dancers, though sensually suggestive in their movements, did not show any nudity at any point.
“The organizers violated rules. In their permit [for the event] they only registered one synthesizer keyboard,” said Jepara Police Chief Yudianto Adhi Nugroho, as quoted by Detik yesterday.
The police say they are also hunting down three dancers, whose identities are not yet known but are believed to be from the Central Java capital of Semarang.
The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) is urging the police not to immediately treat the dancers as pornography suspects.
“Maybe the entertainment industry needs to be looked into. Is there potential for exploitation and trafficking of the women? So don’t go into porn or immorality first,” said Komnas Perempuan Commissioner Mariana Amiruddin, as quoted by Detik.
“Isn’t this kind of entertainment industry legal in many places? Dancers are usually just workers who need jobs.”
Indonesia has strict laws against prostitution, though it is often the case that facilitators and purveyors get criminally charged if caught while sex workers are treated as victims of exploitation and trafficking.
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