Interesting News From Indonesia...

News from Indonesia, Thursday, 7th December 2006 (Jakarta Post)

Insulting the President No Longer A Crime
- As well as burning the picture of the president and vice-president (this is insults) and where previously violators faced a maximum of 6 years in jail

- These Dutch inherited colonial legislation was scrapped by the Constitutional Court

- Former critics such as Sri Bintang Pamungkas, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia, was jailed for 34 months for insulting Soeharto while addressing a seminar in Germany in 1995 and Fakhrur Rahman, 21, a student from Jakarta's State Islamic University, is the latest activist convicted of insulting the president during a protest against the Yudhoyono administration, welcomed the Court’s decision. The latter was sentenced to three months in prison

Indonesia may extend ban on polygamy for civil servants

The government's plan to extend the ban on polygamy for civil servants to cover all state officials could end up helping in the fight against corruption, a prominent Islamic scholar says.

Azyumardi Azra said widening the ban on polygamy, which is stipulated in the 1974 Marriage Law, would mean less male officials stole money from the state to keep their wives happy.
Currently, men are only legally allowed to take a second wife if their first wives are an invalids, terminally ill or infertile. The letter of the law, however, is rarely enforced and the practice is becoming more common among Muslims.

State Minister for Woman's Empowerment Meutia Farida Hatta Swasono said Tuesday the 1983 law prohibiting civil servants from practicing polygamy -- passed reportedly under pressure from the wife of ex-dictator Soeharto -- could be expanded to cover ministers, lawmakers and governors, regents and other officials.

The minister announced the plan after meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The move comes after charismatic Muslim preacher Abdullah "Aa Gym" Gymnastiar publicly admitted to taking a second wife. Aa Gym, who had a strong female following and often preached about family harmony and values, has had to weather a storm of criticism since his admission.

Masdar Farid Mas'udi, a leader in the country's largest Muslim organization Nahdhatul Ulema, said that every man was polygamous by nature.

"Islam only gives a standard of fairness, but it never prohibits it (polygamy). The perception that polygamy only benefits men is not right. Polygamous institutions actually fulfill women's desires and reproductive rights," he told The Jakarta Post.

"Not every man is up to being a husband, unlike women (who make good wives). Therefore, polygamy is nature's way of balancing the supply of women wanting to be wives, with the demand of men who are up to being good husbands."

The ban if implemented, argues legislator Misbach Hidayat, it would make infidelity more widespread and in turn increase prostitution.

Legislator Yoyoh Yusroh from the Prosperous Justice Party said as a woman, she believed polygamy was allowed by Islam to overcome social problems.

"Polygamy is better than infidelity. Think of a 25-year-old widow -- she will need a husband to finance her children. If polygamy is banned, things would only get worse for her," she told detikcom.

Meanwhile, Din Syamsuddin, who chairs the country's second-largest organization Muhammadiyah, thought it would be better not to talk about the subject at all.

"There are many more important problems faced by this nation. Polygamy is a matter of religious interpretation. The government should not develop this into a political issue and religious figures should not give responses (to the idea)," he told the Post.

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Hmm... Can Brunei do this, banning polygamy I mean... :-)