Part 1 of 2: A journalist accused

Part 1 of 2: A journalist accused

Bambang Harymurti, Jakarta

I am a journalist. I am not a lawyer who has mastered the
technicalities of preparing a plea or legal defense in a court of
law. (But) I would like to convey my thoughts and opinions on
various issues that have arisen in the process of this trial.

I would like to begin my explanation with a question:
Should a journalist who practices his profession as mandated by
law, and who publishes his works according to journalistic norms
enshrined in law, be seen as a criminal?

It is now within Your Honor's power to answer this question.
Will Your Honors refer to Art. 4 clause (1) of Law no. 40/1999 on
the Press which states that "Freedom of the Press is guaranteed
as a basic human right of citizens"; also, Article 4 clause (3)
i.e. "in order to guarantee freedom of the press, the national
press has a right to explore, discover and disseminate ideas and
information"; and then implement Art. 8, which states "In
practicing his profession a journalist has protection of the
law," so that Your Honors decide that the prosecutor's charges
against me must be rejected, because they are a wrongful
application of the law.

The alternative is to grant the prosecutor's demands. If this
is the choice you make, then Your Honors will be noted in the
history of this nation as the earliest executioners of press
freedom in this country.

This conclusion is drawn because, if we study the charges that
have been prepared by the public prosecutor, the answer to the
initial question posed above is yes. It would even seem that I,
as the chief editor of Tempo Magazine, am considered to be a
criminal who is so dangerous to the public that the prosecutor
has asked the judges to sentence me to two years imprisonment,
and to detain me immediately. To the best of my knowledge,
requests for immediate detention are usually made only for
dangerous criminals who should not be allowed to remain at large,
and who are held in detention from the time of their arrest until
there is a verdict.

On Aug. 14, 2004, President Megawati bestowed the Bintang
Mahaputera medal on four national figures, including Mochtar
Lubis, a dedicated journalist who was jailed and whose newspaper
was banned both when the Old Order and the New Order started to
enter their authoritarian era. This is interesting, because it
could mean that the prosecutor who made these charges against me
is implementing a policy in contradiction to the President, or
that President Mega only honors freedom of the press in times of
other governments, not during the time of her own regime? Let
history answer this.

As the prosecutor has collided with so many of the markers of
the Constitution and law, it is then not surprising that his
indictment does not make sense, and may even be properly
considered to be contradicting the law, i.e.,: As the chief
editor of a magazine that published an article that complied with
Law No. 40/1999, I am charged by the prosecutor as a criminal who
must be sentenced to two years imprisonment, with an order for
immediate detention, while the leader of the group that attacked
Tempo's offices, who then assaulted me at a police station in an
attempt to force me to reveal the names of the sources in the
Tempo article, is in contrast given a demand at his trial that he
be released of all charges. Isn't this an extraordinarily unjust?

It appears that the effort to undermine press freedom is now
going to be repeated. This contravenes the law, even going back
on the constitutional mandate. All of us are obligated to oppose
this and prevent it from happening.

I passed the article "Ada Tomy di Tenabang?" (Is Tomy in
Tenabang?) without any correction whatsoever. I did this not
through neglect, but because I considered the piece to have met
journalistic norms.

I believe the content of the piece meets current journalistic
norms because it is balanced, based on facts from the field and
explanations from authoritative sources. The circulation of
rumors insinuating Tomy Winata's involvement in the planned
renovation project had itself become a fact; these rumors were so
widespread as rumors that Tomy Winata himself said he had already
asked about this by five other people before being interviewed by
Bernarda Rurit from Tempo.

The piece also complied with the "assumption of innocence" in
that at end of this piece the writer implied that Tomy Winata was
"being maligned," and that there were other parties who were
enjoying the fruits of the controversy.

If a reporter whose work meets the journalistic norms
established under the press law is accused by the state
prosecutor of committing a crime, it is clear that such an
accusation is a wrongful application of the law, and may even
warrant suspicion of the misuse of authority.

The article is an excerpt of Tempo news weekly chief editor
Bambang Harymurti's defense note read before the Central Jakarta
District Court on Aug. 16, 2004. Bambang and two other
journalists from the weekly are being charged with provoking
unrest and defamation against businessman Tomy Winata.