Activist jailed for insulting Megawati

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Central Jakarta District Court sentenced on Monday a Muslim activist to five months in prison for defacing President Megawati Soekarnoputri's portrait in an antigovernment protest on Jan. 15.

Muhammad Iqbal Siregar, 36, who chairs the Islamic Youth Movement (GPI), defaced Megawati's portrait with black tape and allowed it to be run over by a car and a motorcycle during a rally outside the presidential palace.

"The defendant is guilty of violating Article 134 of the Criminal Code for insulting a head of state," presiding judge Cornel Sianturi said.

The five-month jail term was more lenient than the 10 months demanded by prosecutor Arnold Angkouw.

Iqbal, which took part in the protest involving other groups opposed to the President, has been detained since his arrest on Jan. 24. The judges said his detention period would be deducted from his jail sentence.

This means the defendant will have to serve seven more days as a convict in Salemba prison, Central Jakarta.

The panel of judges said the lenient sentence was due to the fact that Iqbal had no criminal record and has a family to take care of.

Clad in a white Muslim robe during the trial, Iqbal said he would consider appealing against the verdict.

"The verdict kills democracy in Indonesia. The judges failed to see the reason for our protest against the President, which was our response to the simultaneous increases of fuel, electricity and telephone prices on the first day of this year," Iqbal told reporters after the trial.

During the Jan. 15 rally, Iqbal carried a picture of Megawati and figuratively sealed her lips with black tape. At the top of the picture was caption reading, "People's Fugitive".

The portrait was then place on the road along Jl. Medan Merdeka Utara outside the presidential palace, allowing vehicles to run over it.

Iqbal, according to the prosecutors, also insulted Megawati, by saying "This is the president who disappoints the people".

Iqbal was the latest of several protesters in the last year to be sentence to prison for insulting Megawati. Several others are still awaiting similar trials.

In October last year, two protesters were declared guilty and ordered to server a year in prison for defacing a portrait of Megawati. Three months later, an Acehnese activist was jailed for six months for drawing a cross over posters of Megawati and Vice President Hamzah Haz.

In a similar case, Kiastomo, a student, was sentenced to five months in jail for burning an effigy of Megawati.

Rakyat Merdeka daily's editor is currently on trial for insulting the President in front-page headlines, one of which described her as "crueler than a cannibal".

Insulting the President or Vice President is a crime in Indonesia, but until last year there had been no prosecutions since the fall of longtime dictator Soeharto in May 1998.

Rights activists have lashed out at the government for enforcing such a law as the unpopular Soeharto did.