Media analysts lament court ruling against 'Koran Tempo'
Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Media analysts questioned the South Jakarta District Court's decision to order the Koran Tempo newspaper to apologize for what the court ruled was a libelous article against businessman Marimutu Sinivasan.
The verdict should not have been reached as the court failed to specify the articles considered to have been defamatory, the argue.
Ignatius Haryanto of the Institute for Press Freedom and Development Studies (LSPP) and Misbahuddin Gasma of Legal Aid for the Press (LBH Pers) said there were some peculiarities in the ruling.
"The ruling is weird because it fails to specify the articles deemed to have been defamatory," Ignatius told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
He said the articles published by Koran Tempo had quoted releases and data from the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA).
According to Ignatius, Sinivasan and Texmaco should have filed a lawsuit against IBRA instead of the daily.
Similarly, Misbahuddin said the verdict against Koran Tempo clearly showed an increasing threat to press freedom.
The panel of judges on Tuesday found Koran Tempo guilty of running libelous articles from January 2003 through April 2003 and ordered it to apologize in national electronic and print media for three consecutive days.
The newspaper was also ordered to withdraw the defamatory articles. If the daily fails to do so, it will be fined Rp 10 million (US$1,176) per day until it complies with the court order.
Lawyers for Koran Tempo said they would appeal the verdict.
This is the latest anti-press verdict since similar verdicts were handed down against Matra magazine and Rakyat Merdeka daily.
The chief editor of Rakyat Merdeka, Karim Paputungan, was sentenced to five months in jail in September for insulting House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung, while the daily's executive editor, Supratman, was given a six months sentence in October for defaming President Megawati Soekarnoputri Both sentences were suspended.
Meanwhile, Hinca IP Panjaitan from the Indonesia Media Law and Policy Center (IMLPC) urged members of the public to use their right to reply if they objected to a media report.
This could prevent a court from holding an article libelous, he added.
By resorting to the courts, Hinca said members of the public would not get satisfaction as the court process usually took a long time.
"It does not solve the problem. The public should use their right to give explanations or invite the Press Council to mediate in a dispute," he told the Post.
He denied claims that the right to reply mechanism was ineffective.
Citing a dispute between the former chief of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) Lt. Gen. Djaja Suparman and the Jawa Pos daily, Hinca said the case was settled after the daily published a long reply from Djaja.
Djaja had earlier accused Jawa Pos of publishing a libelous report that implicated him in the Oct. 12 Bali bombings, which killed at least 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.