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Graphic pornographic images made a return to the Constitutional Court on Thursday, much to the discomfort of some of the judges considering a judicial review filed against the controversial Anti-Pornography Law.

The government’s expert witness, Elly Risman, a psychologist from child-protection NGO Yayasan Kita and Buah Hati, presented a number of explicit images she argued would have a devastating effect on young people.

She selected images from a pornographic Web site that exploited the name of a popular children’s cartoon program, Naruto, which does not contain pornography, to illustrate her point.

During her presentation, at least two of the nine judges hearing the case occupied themselves by looking at the floor.

Claiming to have conducted surveys with thousands of children, Elly said her research showed that almost 70 percent of elementary school-aged children had admitted to accessing pornographic material in films, comics, magazines, newspapers and on cell phones and the Internet.

She said that when the children surveyed were given the opportunity to ask any question they liked about the opposite sex, many had asked about sexual intercourse or wanted to know how to make babies.

“Most of them no longer have innocent questions relevant to their age, as they have been widely exposed [to pornography] by those media,” she said.

Elly said her research revealed that 97 percent of high school students had accessed pornographic material. “Watching [pornography] for two days in row made me feel like I was going to have a heart attack,” she added.

Neuroscientist Andre Mayza, also appearing on behalf of the government, said exposure to sexually suggestive images was addictive and, in the long term, could lead to brain damage.

“It distracts people’s attention making them unable to concentrate, and in the end may result in brain damage similar to having a traffic accident,” he said, adding that “the addiction may result in sexual crimes.”

Some 30 organizations representing various groups throughout the country, including cultural, ethnic, human rights, artists and women’s rights groups, are appealing against the controversial Anti-Pornography Law, which they say is draconian and deeply flawed.

The groups argue that the law’s definition of pornography is vague and misleading, causing problems with its interpretation, and contend that Article 4 of the law, which forbids people from producing, distributing or selling anything that can be categorized as pornography, is unconstitutional. Article 4 also stipulates prison sentences of up to 15 years for violators and fines of up to Rp 7.5 billion ($795,000).

The groups say that it is better to use the existing laws in the Criminal Code to police pornography. The law has been challeged twice previously.

Wirawan Adnan, of the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), argued the law was needed to protect the morality of the country’s youth. He said pornography was a corrupting influence, citing research by the National Coordinating Agency for Family Planning (BKKBN) that showed 39 percent of young people have engaged in premarital sex.