Fri, 09 Jun 2000

'Matra' editor receives 5-month suspended term

JAKARTA (JP): The South Jakarta District Court sentenced on Thursday chief editor of Matra monthly Robertus Riantiarno to a five-month suspended jail term for publishing semipornograhic pictures in its June and July editions last year.

"By publishing the pictures, the defendant violated Article 282 of the Criminal Code," said presiding judge T.H.S Pardede during the hearing at the district court.

"The 1966 press law also rules that the chief editor of a publication is responsible for its editorial content," he added.

Present at the one-hour hearing, which started at noon, were prosecutor Sulaiman Hajaratin and the defendant's team of lawyers, led by Todung Mulya Lubis.

Also present were members of popular theater group Teater Koma: Nungky Kusumastuti, Jajang C. Noer and Ratna Riantiarno, who is also Riatiarno's wife. Riantiarno also leads the group.

Riantiarno will not see the inside of a jail unless he commits a criminal offense within the eight-month probation period.

The 50-year-old defendant was taken to court in August last year after the magazine, which calls itself a male magazine, published two suggestive pictures of popular actresses Sarah Azhari and Inneke Koesherawati on its June and July covers, respectively, last year.

In the June edition, Sarah was sitting with her legs crossed and her arms covering her breasts.

Inneke posed in a similar fashion. The only difference was that Inneke was photographed from the side.

Judge Pardede said the original pictures of the two actresses were altered to make the women look nude. "The altered pictures were not shown to the two actresses."

"The actresses then lodged complaints with the magazine, demanding the magazine clarify that they were not nude in the pictures," said Pardede.

The magazine announced in its August 1999 edition that the women were not nude when the pictures were taken, he said.

The judge said the pictures had violated moral norms, but the defendant insisted the pictures were works of art.

"The magazine is read by people from all walks of life, not only by certain groups of people," he said.

Todung immediately responded that he would appeal the verdict.

Todung said the panel of judges had not been objective and had failed to comprehensively observed the case before deciding the verdict.

"Those were artistic photographs. About 90 percent of the magazine's content is not pornographic.

"Judging from its content, the magazine educates people about sex without sensationalism," he told reporters after the hearing, adding that many other publications exploited sex in a cruder manner than Matra but had escaped legal sanction.

Col. Saleh Saaf, a senior staffer at the National Police's General Information Division, denied that the police had targeted only Matra.

"The police also targeted other media publishing pornographic stories and pictures, not only Matra. The national police headquarters has been investigating and summoning Wow weekly tabloid since a week ago for allegedly publishing vulgar and suggestive pictures," he told The Jakarta Post.

A police officer at the South Jakarta Police station, however, said the police were in a dilemma about dealing with such issues.

"Once we take stern actions, we're condemned for breaching the concept of a free press. Even stern measures sometimes bring about social unrest, like what happened during a recent police raid on pirated video compact discs (VCDs) in Glodok, West Jakarta.

"But if we do nothing, we are condemned by people for condoning pornography," said Maj. Ahmad Alwi, head of the station's police detectives.

Meanwhile, law and communications expert Andi Muis said the term "pornography" was disputable.

"People have their own perceptions of the term. Therefore, the presence of an independent and respected Press Council is badly needed to assess whether a publication should be categorized as pornographic," he said. (asa)