Unspun

Former First Lady Sinta Nuriya Wahid today filed a police complaint against the Betawi Brotherhood Forum chairman Fadloli El Muhir alleging that he had sladered women who were taking part in a rally against the pornography bill.

Fadloli, if you remember is the charming chap who called the women "evil, wretched and immoral" during a live TV talkshow.

The police reaction was laughable: Jakarta Police Chief Firman Gani said he would invote language experts to determine whether the statements were sladerous. Why a language expert should be telling the police what to do makes as much sense as a country without libel laws such as Indonesia. The closest you get is that libel is a crime (and not a tort as in most other countries) against a person's reputation.

Fadloli was unrepentant and was his usual charming self when approached by the Press: "They (the women) were the ones who started it. They stagede their protest without decency by exposing their breasts in public."

His judgement of gender, apparently isn't too astute: the evil, wretched and immoral boobie flasher was apparently not a woman at all. It was a transvestite. The papers also said that he/she did not flash her boobies but wore revealing clothing. The mind boggles as to what sort of a boobie a transvestite could flash.

But in this broughaha one development seems to have been forgotten by everyone. What's happened to the 21 Islamic Defenders Front huudlums who were arrested for trashing entertainment joints in Bekasi some time ago. All three or four newspapers which carried the story above did not even mention it.

Looks like the Press will fail us again in not reporting the conclusion to a story. Is there anyone out there who can tell us all what's happened to them?