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Indonesian clerics forbid TV gossip shows
AFP - Thursday, July 29
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JAKARTA (AFP) - – Indonesia's highest Islamic body has followed up a series of contentious fatwas with a new edict banning Muslims from watching TV gossip shows or having sex-change operations.
The increasingly assertive Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) said gossip shows about the intimate details of people's private lives -- a popular genre on Indonesian television -- were immoral and threatened society.
"We considered it important to pass the fatwa as infotainment programmes may contain immoral material and violate the journalistic code of ethics," MUI official Asrorun Niam Soleh said Wednesday.
"We're not against all infotainment programmes... What's haram (forbidden) is material that's gossipy and exposes shameful details about people.
"When people start spreading rumours, the joints holding a nation together will be crushed."
Profiting from infotainment shows is also forbidden under the edict, posing a theological conundrum for the media industry in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.
Gossip shows are allowed only if they "uphold the law, warn the public and help people", Soleh said.
The ruling will be presented to the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission as a guideline for future infotainment programmes, he added.
The controversy over infotainment shows began after sex videos featuring rock singer Nazril Ariel, 28, his girlfriend Luna Maya, 29, and ex-girlfriend Cut Tari, 32, went viral on the Internet in June.
Islamists called for the stars to be publicly stoned and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned that the country risked being "crushed by the information-technology frenzy".
University of Indonesia communications analyst Ade Armando said broadcasters were coming under increasing pressure to tone down their more racy shows.
"Infotainment programmes will be less sensational from now," he said.
Another fatwa passed at an MUI meeting late Tuesday forbade receiving or conducting a sex-change operation unless there is a good medical reason.
"People can argue about having the freedom to be whatever gender they choose, but it's against the norm. If you're born normal, you don't change your gender, cut off your arms or gouge out your eyeballs," Soleh said.
The council is the top Islamic authority in Indonesia and while most of its edicts are ignored, they can be cited by religious hardliners to justify vigilante-style crackdowns on "un-Islamic" activities.
It has recently issued a steady stream of fatwas including bans on inter-faith marriages, smoking and yoga.
It was forced into an embarrassing apology earlier this month when it corrected a fatwa ordering Muslims to pray to the west, when in fact the Islamic holy sites in Saudi Arabia are northwest of Indonesia.
Housewife Netti Yatty Mondra, a 55-year-old Muslim and a fan of the sort of shows the clerics want banned, said she did not intend to follow the edict.
"The MUI has issued so many fatwas and they can be too strict sometimes," she said.
However, Indonesian Journalists Association chairman Farid Ridwan Iskandar welcomed the fatwa against gossip shows.
"We support it. We hope reporters will not barge into people's homes without permission and stop reporting on hearsay," he said.
But Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia programming head Banardi Rachmad said the station would continue to produce and broadcast such content.
"We'll continue broadcasting infotainment programmes but we'll evaluate the content and see how to improve it," he said.
"What's fact to us could be deemed as lies by others, how do we know for sure what constitutes a rumour?"
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