The police’s Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) officers in West Jakarta raided a hotel in Kembangan, West Jakarta following complaints by locals that they were able to see a couple having sex through a window.
According to reports, on Friday, a couple, both 25, checked in at a Reddoorz-affiliated budget hotel in Kembangan, West Jakarta. In the evening, the couple unwittingly gave a show for locals in the area when they were having sex with the curtains in their room wide open.
One local filmed the scene from outside the hotel and later reported the incident to the authorities. The next day, Satpol PP officers raided the hotel and gave the couple a warning.
“The incident attracted many to hang around outside the hotel, causing quite a scene. That’s why, as authorities, we had to act,” Kembangan Police Crime Investigation Unit Head Niko Purba said.
The couple were reportedly not exhibitionists, as they confessed to the police that they had forgotten to shut the curtains.
Niko said that the video of the couple was only taken for evidence and was not uploaded online, thereby absolving them of charges of porno-action under the country’s vague anti-pornography laws, which have often been used to justify moral policing.
Instead, the couple was allowed to return to their homes in Ciledug, Tangerang.
Authorities have issued a warning to the hotel owner and temporarily shuttered the room where the couple stayed.
“[The hotel owner] is being warned for negligence. How was it possible that the hotel allowed an unmarried couple [into one room] even after reviewing their ID cards?” West Jakarta Satpol PP Chief Tamo Sijabat said.
To be clear, hotels in Jakarta are not legally required to restrict hotel rooms to married couples. Some hotels, however, enforce Islamic sharia rules and bar couples without marriage registrations from checking in.
