AJI demands Sutiyoso obey court

AJI demands Sutiyoso obey court

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Lawyers of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) said on
Friday that they would demand an immediate execution of the
Central Jakarta District Court's ruling last month ordering
Governor Sutiyoso to apologize to AJI for intimidating a Warta
Kota daily journalist.

"We will ask the court to force Sutiyoso to apologize to AJI,"
one of the lawyers, Azas Tigor Nainggolan, told The Jakarta Post
on the sidelines of a function at AJI's office in Central Jakarta
to celebrate AJI's victory in its lawsuit against Sutiyoso.

Tigor said Sutiyoso could send a letter of apology to Edi
Hariyadi through AJI, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the
journalist.

He said the court should force the governor and his officials
to apologize, since they had not appealed the court ruling.

"It's been more than 14 days since the court issued the ruling
favoring us. Their (the defendants') time to appeal has passed,"
Tigor said, referring to the Criminal Law Procedures Code, which
stipulates that a convict has 14 days to decide whether to file
an appeal against a court ruling or not.

Besides Sutiyoso, the court, in its Jan. 28 decision, also
ordered the East Jakarta mayor, the East Jakarta public order
office chief and public order official Dapot Manihuruk to
apologize to Edi Hariyadi.

The incident occurred on March 27 last year when Edi was
covering the activities of city public order officials who were
evicting illegal settlers along the Cakung riverbank in
Cilincing, East Jakarta.

One of the officers, Dapot, attempted but failed to stop Edi
from closely observing the eviction. Since then Edi frequently
received phone threats from Dapot.

AJI's victory was the first lawsuit won by a non-governmental
organization against government officials. Last year, some becak
(pedicab) drivers, as individuals, won a class action suit
against the city administration for seizing their becak following
a raid. The city administration has appealed the ruling.

Separately, city spokesman Muhayat said on Friday that the AJI
case was being handled by the city administration's legal office.

"We have yet to receive a report from the legal office on
whether we have appealed or not," Muhayat told the Post.