Posted May 30, 2017 20:02:36

Photo: Rizieq has repeatedly denied the allegations, and said the chat was fake. (Reuters: Iqro Rinaldi)

The lawyer for hardline Indonesian cleric Habib Rizieq Shihab has promised a religious "revolution" against Joko Widodo's Government after his client was charged with pornography offences.

Police named the leader of the Islamic Defenders Front as a suspect — the equivalent in Indonesia of criminal charges — over naked images of a female supporter allegedly sent during steamy WhatsApp chats.

Screenshots of the alleged chat have been circulating in Jakarta for months.

The conversation is supposedly between Rizieq, who is married, and supporter Firza Husein.

In the chat, Rizieq allegedly makes graphic sexual comments and asks Ms Firza to send him naked images of herself.

"I'll wait with raging passion" he allegedly says.

"Come on," Rizieq reportedly urges at another point.

"Naked and sitting pose," he allegedly writes.

Rizieq and Ms Firza have repeatedly denied the allegations, saying the chat is fake.

Indonesia's police say they have made a forensic match between Ms Firza and the images circulated on WhatsApp.

Police said they have matched 16 "curves" on Ms Firza's body with the WhatsApp photos.

Under Indonesia's anti-pornography laws it is illegal to share, view or store any images of explicit nudity, or to make anyone else be an "object or model" of pornography.

The same anti-pornography laws have been used against 141 gay men arrested in Jakarta earlier this month at a sauna in the city's north.

Rizieq is also facing criminal charges for allegedly insulting Indonesian unity by criticising the nation's founding Pancasila doctrine.

"I've been slandered so many times," Rizieq said.

"They've said that I've got six wives, they said I've sodomised my troops, they said I had affairs with women, they said I've accepted bribes of Rp100 billion, they said I've stolen the state's land, they said I've insulted pancasila, they said I'm anti bhinneka tunggal Ika (unity in diversity), so there are a lot of them," he said.

A lot of the alleged conversation cannot be repeated here — but he does imply at one point that he and Ms Firza have a physical relationship, and refers to an intimate act between the pair.

At one point Rizieq makes an apparent reference to his wife, saying that he needed to be quiet or else the "guard" would overhear.

Rizieq is in Saudi Arabia.

His lawyer, Kapitra Ampera, says his client will come back to face the charges, and his return will mark a "white revolution" that would eventually see the Jokowi government defeated at the polls in 2019.

Rizieq and the FPI led the campaign for the jailing of former Jakarta governor "Ahok" Basuki for "insulting Islam".

Ahok was convicted of blasphemy earlier this month and jailed for two years.

Topics: international-law, pornography, indonesia