The standards used by the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) are a bit hard to figure out. KPI demands that TV stations blur out the tiniest hint of female cleavage, be it on a cartoon character, robot or beauty pageant contestants in a traditional Indonesian dress, but apparently a sermon talking about “sex parties” in heaven on a religious TV show called “Islam Itu Indah” (Islam is Beautiful) is okay according to their regulations.

A clip from the show, which went viral over the weekend, showed part of 24-year-old celebrity cleric Ustadz Syam’s sermon, in which he said, “One of the pleasures in heaven are sex parties,” causing an uproar on social media and numerous complaints to be lodged with KPI for its inappropriateness.

https://twitter.com/RennyFernandez/status/886856772266446848

However, KPI Commissioner for the Supervision of Broadcasting, Nuning Rodiyah, said that the sermon did not actually violate the commission’s Broadcasting Practice Code and Broadcast Program Standards (P3SPS).

That said, Nuning said the program did have the potential to violate P3SPS, but only because it was creating a public disturbance, leading them to issue a warning letter to broadcaster Trans TV.

“KPI, in its warning letter, requested that TransTV be more prudent in delivering its programming, especially religious content, in order not to cause public disturbances,” Nuning said when contacted by Tempo yesterday.

In addition to the warning letter, KPI met with representatives of TransTV, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and the Ministry of Religious Affairs on Monday to discuss the program. Trans TV Director Latief Harnoko apologized and said in a statement that they would correct the mistake through internal “coordination and evaluation”.

KPI said that the Religious Affairs Ministry and MUI would provide “coaching and mentoring” to “Islam Itu Indah” to make sure that its sermons did not cause more public disturbances in the future.

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