Indonesia deports 5 Saudis for
short-term marriages
Jakarta
Five Saudi Arabian men have been deported from Indonesia
for marrying local
women for "short-term pleasures", an official
said on Wednesday.
The men were arrested in Puncak -- a hill-top
town south of Jakarta
frequented by tourists from the Middle East -- said Yeyet
Oking, the chief
of the immigration department in Bogor.
"Short-term marriages are an act of disrespect
for our marriage law.
Besides, they have also misused their tourist visas,"
Oking told Reuters.
"Basically it's concealed prostitution
and they do this not to raise a
family but to have short-term pleasures," he said.
He said short-term weddings, which are not
recognised by the state, had been
practised for years in Puncak and were a cause for concern
among local
people.
Oking said the move to crack down on "contract
marriages", as the practice
is called here, followed remarks by Vice President Jusuf
Kalla about the
issue in June.
Kalla drew harsh criticism from women activists
after he said at a tourism
seminar the practice of short-term marriages could be economically
beneficial for local people.
He was later quoted by the Jakarta Post newspaper
as saying his remarks were
intended to be a joke and he had actually proposed other
alternatives to
lure Arab tourists instead of short-term marriages.
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