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JAKARTA, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Indonesia’s broadcasting commission said on Wednesday a popular U.S. wrestling television show should be banned as authorities investigated the death of a boy who played with children who mimicked the fighters’ moves.
The official cause of the 9-year-old’s death has not yet been determined. He suffered blows to his body in October and died a month later.
The wrestling programme, titled SmackDown, is produced by U.S.-based World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., whose shows are seen widely around the world.
It features wrestlers punching, kicking, choking and slamming one another to the floor in an elaborate, mostly scripted entertainment format.
Indonesian Broadcasting Commission member Ade Armando said the show should be canned.
“We have SmackDown posters, shirts, cards, and other things. It has become some kind of specific culture with its own community,” he told a local radio station.
“If there is no television show, we assume those other things will lose audience. So our conclusion is stopping the show altogether. We will not tolerate its showing anytime.”
It was not immediately clear if private broadcaster Lativi would drop the show. Commission powers to enforce content decisions are ill-defined and subject to challenge.
Since the boy died in the West Java city of Bandung on Nov. 16, Indonesian media have hunted for other stories of injuries to students in fighting games that might be linked to the show.
Some in the United States also say wrestling shows can spark violence or cause injuries when fans try to imitate the stunts they feature, and the argument has been raised in court cases.
The broadcasts often include warnings viewers should not try doing at home what they see the professionals — who themselves are sometimes injured — doing on television.
Aside from Lativi’s broadcasts, the show is widely available in Indonesia on pirated video. Schoolboys are a leading fanbase.
“It is just proper for these kind of shows to be wisely stopped. It seems as if there are no better shows,” Women Empowerment Minister Meutia Hatta said on Wednesday.
Some parents and leading educators had already called for a ban. However, Lativi had instead pushed the airtime from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. when presumably fewer children are awake to watch.
After reforms swept Indonesia following the 1998 demise of President Suharto’s authoritarian regime, government censorship was cut back and controversial TV programmes mushroomed.
