Jakarta - Indonesia's parliament on Thursday passed an anti-pornography bill into law, which Islamic parties and organizations argued is needed to save the country from immoral behaviour.

Shouts of "Alhamdulillah" ("Thanks be to God") came from the balcony of the House of Representatives' plenary hall as the gavel was banged to mark the passing of the bill, witnesses said.

The bill, which outlaws pornographic acts and dissemination of overtly sexual images has been almost a decade in the making and has been watered-down on several occasions amid rows over the definition of pornography.

Violators face up to 12 years in prison or a fine of up to 600,000 dollars, news reports said.

It has gone through several revisions in recent months, now allowing, for example, bikinis at tourist resorts.

Eight of the House's 10 factions agreed to endorse the bill while lawmakers from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Prosperous and Peace Party boycotted the vote. The two factions together have 122 seats in the 550-seat Parliament.

"We stepped out of the plenary session because we don't want to be involved in the process of adopting it into law," said Tjahjo Kumolo, chairman of the PDI-P. "The public is strongly opposed to this bill."

But Maftuh Basyuni, the minister of religious affairs, hailed the passage, the state-run Antara news agency said.

Critics of the bill said it could be misused against Indonesia's minority Christian and Hindu communities and threatens the country's pluralistic culture.

"This bill is against Indonesia's diversity defended by our constitution," argued lawmaker Eva Sundari from the PDI-P.

Officially, art and culture are exempt from the bill, but people in Papua, Bali and other Indonesian islands with large non-Muslim populations worry that the new law is too vague and could be misused by Muslim hardliners.

They also fear it could scare away tourists.

More than 88 per cent of Indonesia's 230 million citizens are Muslims, and the vast majority practice a moderate form of the faith, but a minority of hard-line Islamist groups said globalization is weakening the country's moral standards and revived an anti-pornography bill originally drafted in 1999.

Lawmakers supporting the anti-pornography bill denied the legislation was aimed at disrupting the arts and people's creativity. They said the bill was necessary to protect Indonesia's cultural tradition from being divested of its rich values by ulterior motives such as that of the pornography industry.

"This is not legislation aimed at the destruction of artistic creativity, traditional and customary apparel," insisted Zainut Tauhid Sa'adi from the Muslim-based United Development Party. (dpa)