Publisher of non-nude Playboy mag beats indecency rap

Even though Indonesian publisher Erwin Arnada put out the world's most boring issue of Playboy — its models were not nude — the magazine wasn't boring enough for some judges and Islamic fundamentalists.

The publisher thought a chaste version of Playboy would evade Muslim-majorityIndonesia's anti-porn laws. He was wrong. Arnada has been imprisoned under indecency charges since last October.

But Indonesia's supreme court is set to nullify those charges and turn the publisher loose this week, so reports the Jakarta Globe. According to the newspaper, his defense was prepared to actually summon a foreign publisher to explain the mag never depicted the softcore nudity typical to Playboy. 

This is a bummer for Indonesia's largest Muslim vigilante group, the Islamic Defenders Front, profiled extensively last year by Global Post. The group has previously stormed Playboy Indonesia's offices, vandalized shops selling the mag and even vowed to "hunt down" the publisher.

No word yet on whether Arnada will again risk publishing his watered-down — yet highly controversial — version of Playboy.