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overnor Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo said he would issue permits to artists aspiring to beautify the capital with their artwork, but street muralists replied that bureaucracy would only block their inspiration.

Jokowi said recently he welcomed murals, despite having issued a call forbidding people to write and draw on walls in the city.

 'Who says I'm against it? I support artists to paint the city's idle walls. They can discuss it with me and the spatial planning agency,' he told reporters at City Hall, while adding that artists should follow the city administration's rules.

 'There are rules about where they can do it and what theme they can pick and so on,' he said. 'We should first discuss the theme and change it every two or three months.'

The gubernatorial call issued in April carries a maximum 60-day jail sentence and/or a maximum fine of Rp 20 million (US$2,000) in punishment for individuals or firms that write, draw, paste pamphlets or
posters on walls in public places.

The decree is the implementing regulation of Article 21 of Bylaw No. 8/2007 on public order.

Jokowi's call in April raised artists' eyebrows, including Indonesian Street Art Database (ISAD) director Andi Riyanto, who said graffiti and murals were forms of expression, the themes of which theme could not be determined by the city.

'The spirit of street art is the social criticism of elements of culture, the government and much more. The city administration shouldn't determine our work because it is a criticism of them too,' he told The Jakarta Post.

He added that painting walls with permits had been done since 2007, but implementation had not gone as expected.

In 2007, Andi said, he and friends painted graffiti for an anticorruption campaign and had a permit from the city administration.

'But the public order agency [Satpol PP] were there and told us to stop, even after we showed the permit,' he reminisced. 'After a long discussion, they let us continue. And the subdistrict office scraped it off the next day,' he added.

 He lamented that coordination among city administration officials was poor. In the group, Andi said he had instead compiled a database of murals and street art across the city and the country, including identifying the location, author and materials used.

The group believes the documentation can be used to keep track of the country's history.

'National heroes also used wall paintings for propaganda long ago,' he said.

 The call to restrict walls in the city from graffiti art has also had a detrimental impact on some street children.

 A group of volunteers under the Sahabat Anak community, who introduced the Graffiteach program, say the decision has led them not being able to teach street children in West Jakarta using some walls under bridges.

They have been using graffiti to help teach children living on the city's streets, who are missing out on regular school.

Every weekend, the volunteers create a school in the dirt, bringing books, boards and volunteers to some of the city's most impoverished children.

Through the online petition website change.org, Graffiteach gathered signatures to support their cause to push Jokowi to permit them to use the walls to educate street children. The petition has gathered over 200 supporters so far.

University of Indonesia sociologist Johannes Frederik Warouw recently said the governor should have first studied the phenomenon of writing and drawing on walls in public spaces before issuing such a call, because most graffiti was a form of expression among young people.