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.