Court fines students for `boisterous actions'
JAKARTA (JP): The Central Jakarta district court yesterday imposed a Rp 2,500 (US$1.16) fine on each of the 41 students and activists arrested the day before during a hunger strike.
Lt. Col. Latief Rabar, spokesman of the Jakarta police force, told The Jakarta Post the charges were based on Chapter 510 of the Criminal Code, which forbids the staging of "boisterous actions" in public places without permission from police officials.
The students and activists were arrested on Thursday after the police dispersed a peaceful demonstration on the premises of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) against the ban on three prominent news magazines, Tempo, Editor and DeTik.
The group, assisted by defense lawyers from the Legal Aid Foundation, rejected the sentence and demanded an appeal.
"The YLBHI strongly protests the police action on Thursday's protest, which was in fact carried out on YLBHI grounds... . It is against the law for anyone to intrude and arrest our guests," said Hendardi, the Foundation's Director of Communications and Special Programs, during a news conference yesterday.
Luhut Pangaribuan, a lawyer and the director of YLBHI, confirmed this stance, saying that the Foundation "strongly condemns" the police action.
"Such a mistake, made by servants of the law, such as the police, is by far the greatest transgression of all," he said.
Hendardi said that before the arrests took place, the Foundation convinced police officers of the Menteng police sub- precinct that no disturbances would occur during Thursday's protests.
"But these negotiations were immediately annulled when the Chief of the Central Jakarta Police Precinct, Lt. Col. Dadang Garnida, arrived on the scene and ordered YLBHI to disperse the group," he explained.
YLBHI refused on the grounds that the protest "was legitimate and in line with YLBHI's stance," Hendardi said.
According to Adnan Buyung Nasution, an outspoken lawyer and the president of the YLBHI board of directors, Thursday's incident was the first time in the 24 years of YLBHI's existence that the country's "instruments of power" had entered the grounds of the Foundation, which was accommodating guests who were expressing complaints.
The Legal Aid Foundation, he said, is a place where every Indonesian, regardless of background, is welcome and its premises are therefore not a public place as implied by the policemen who broke up the protests.
The YLBHI director said the Foundation had sent a letter to the National and the City police chiefs to request a meeting.
Meanwhile, in Semarang, the provincial capital of Central Java, a demonstration against the media ban was reportedly staged by 100 students from various universities who assembled in front of the provincial office of the Ministry of Information.
In a related development, the chairman of the Forum Demokrasi working group, Abdurrahman Wahid, issued a statement saying the hunger strike should be seen as an attempt to achieve a lofty goal.
"It is a moral struggle and not of a political nature," he said.
Abdurrahman said that rather than being an attempt to commit suicide, as some people tend to see it, a hunger strike is an action "to seek the truth with all the consequences involved".
"Its value is as pious as that of a fight in a holy war for Allah," he said. (pwn/jsk/har)