AJI members tell court they spread no hatred

AJI members tell court they spread no hatred

JAKARTA (JP): Two journalists accused of sowing hatred against
the government through articles in the unlicensed Independen
magazine denied all charges in a court session yesterday.

Ahmad Taufik, 29, and Eko Maryadi, 27 -- both members of the
Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) -- told the judges in
the Central Jakarta District Court that they only wrote facts in
the articles of Independen.

Prosecutor T.S Limbong previously demanded the judges sentence
each of the defendants to four years in jail, saying that they
published articles which incited public hatred and enmity against
the government.

Limbong cited as an example the publication's articles about
the Minister of Information's alleged burgeoning financial
holdings in the local media and the minister's alleged political
maneuvering ahead of the 1997 general election as well as the
1998 presidential election.

"If writing a fact such as in our articles is considered as
sowing hatred, I am afraid this court will be full of press
offenses," Taufik said, adding that such articles filled and
became headlines in local media over the last two months.

Although the two defendants stressed that their articles were
correct, they denied all responsibility for the articles'
content, saying that neither of them were the chief editor of the
magazine.

The unlicensed Independen was not published by the executives
of AJI, but by some of its members in Bandung, Taufik said.

However, he insisted, AJI does not recognize the Minister of
Information's decree requiring all media to obtain publishing
licenses from the government. AJI also rejects the Indonesian
Journalists Association (PWI) as the sole organization
representing Indonesian journalists, he said, adding that such
regulations contradict the 1945 Constitution, which assures the
rights of speech and assembly.

AJI was founded after the government banned three weeklies,
DeTIK, Tempo and Editor, in June last year.

The government has not yet outlawed AJI, but banned Independen
in March. However, following governmental pressure, some AJI
members working for various local publications have been forced
to resign from their jobs or have been forced to move to non-
editorial positions.

The defendants' lawyers said that according to witnesses'
testimonies in the court, the prosecutor's charges were not
proved.

"Not one of the witnesses stated that Taufik or Eko was the
chief editor of Independen, who should be responsible for
content," said Bambang Wijoyanto, one of defendants' lawyers.

Expert witnesses such as senior journalists Mochtar Lubis and
Atmakusumah thought that the articles in Independen were balanced
and did not spark social unrest or public hatred, Bambang added.

In a related development, Danang Kukuh Maryadi, 19, was
sentenced to 20 months imprisonment on Thursday after the court
found him guilty of helping Eko and Taufik distribute copies of
the magazine. (29)