One Indonesian man’s apparent disgust of PDA has landed him in hot water with the law, with him potentially facing imprisonment for filming a couple making out.
Police in the East Java city of Mojokerto on Tuesday arrested a 20-year-old man named Fuad Nur for violating Indonesia’s strict anti-pornography law and the draconian Information and Electronic Transactions Act (UU ITE), which criminalizes online dissemination of any content deemed immoral.
According to the police, Fuad was at a café with his cousin recently when they spotted a couple getting frisky with each other at another table. He claimed he was “upset” that the café was being used as a make out spot, so he took out his phone.
“I filmed them… I wanted to teach them a lesson,” Fuad told reporters, as quoted by Detik.
The “lesson” Fuad had in mind was shaming them by spreading video clips of the couple’s PDA through WhatsApp. But Fuad ended up being taught a lesson of his own as the video went viral and the police soon tracked him down as the original uploader.
Though to some, footage of people making out wouldn’t be considered “pornography”, the law banning it is ambiguously worded and open to interpretation by law enforcement, to the point that people have been arrested merely over sensually suggestive acts like holding an event featuring girls in bikinis dancing.
At any rate, spreading pornography online is a crime which carries a maximum five-year prison sentence.
