Former newspaper boss gets nine months for defamation

Former newspaper boss gets nine months for defamation

Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Sleman

A former general manager of a Yogyakarta start-up newspaper was
sentenced to nine months in jail on Wednesday for defamation.

The verdict ignored demands earlier by media workers outside
court room, who said that the judge must not criminalize the
media and should respect the freedom of expression.

In his verdict, presiding judge Djoko Setiono said that Risang
Bima Wijaya, the then general manager of Radar Jogja newspaper,
was guilty of publishing several articles in the newspaper two
years ago that defamed the general manager of the Kedaulatan
Rakyat newspaper, Soemadi Martono Wonohito.

Kedaulatan Rakyat is the largest circulation newspaper in
Yogyakarta province and has been operating for 50 years.

The judge said that the defendant had written several articles
in his newspaper alleging that Soemadi had sexually harassment
one of his staff, Sri Wahyuni. However, in the articles, the
defendant never sought confirmation from Soemadi over whether the
sexual harassment actually happened.

The defendant was convicted of violating the Criminal Code in
defaming Soemadi and sentenced him to nine months in jail.

Presiding judge Djoko refused to answer journalists questions
on why he did not apply media law in the case, despite the case
being a media dispute and not a criminal one. "No comment," the
judge replied curtly. Risang himself expressed apprehension over
the verdict, which he said was biased, and that he would appeal.

The court session itself was marred by protest.

Before the court session began, dozens of people grouped under
the name Community Care for Press Freedom, held a protest outside
the court room. Among the protesters were Arief Affandi, an
executive with the Jawa Pos group that owns Radar Jogja, Bambang
Harymurti, the chief editor of Tempo weekly news magazine, and
Hinca Panjaitan from the Press Council.

"Criminalization of the media will kill democracy. It has to
be put to a stop," said Bambang in his speech before the crowd.
Bambang himself has been sentenced to one year in jail for
defaming business tycoon Tommy Winata, but walked free pending
his appeal to the Supreme Court.

In an earlier court session related to the same case, Radar
Jogja was fined US$600,000 by the same court for defaming
Soemadi.