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)