Nazar verdict criticized as politically motivated

Nazar verdict criticized as politically motivated

JAKARTA (JP): The guilty verdict handed down to Aceh
Referendum Information Center (SIRA) chief Muhammad Nazar drew
condemnation on Thursday with some saying the trial, criticized
as a political maneuver which made Nazar a prisoner of
conscience, contained legal defects.

"From the human rights definition, it was not a criminal
trial, but a political one," Asmara Nababan, a member of the
National Commission on Human Rights, told The Jakarta Post.

Separately, a criminal law expert from Bandung's University of
Padjadjaran, Pontang Moerad, told the Post the trial was legally
defect as the judges had interpreted the law in an outdated
manner just as the Dutch colonial government did to stifle the
independence movement.

A Banda Aceh District Court panel of judges presided over by
Farida Hanoem sentenced Nazar on Wednesday to 10 months in jail
after finding him guilty of violating articles 154 and 155 of the
Criminal Code for showing hostile intentions toward the state.

Nababan said that since the 1970s, human rights activists had
urged the government to revoke the articles, which were often
used against people who had different opinions from the
authorities.

In 1999, the government scrapped the 1963 Subversion Law to
promote democracy, but the two controversial articles in the
Criminal Code remain.

Nababan said these articles should have been repealed as they
restricted people's freedom of expression and could lead to the
imprisonment of people whose opinions differed from those of the
government, as in Nazar's case.

"If the government does not like someone's ideas, it should
counter them with ideas, with discourse, instead of taking them
to court," he said.

The government has long planned to revise the Criminal Code, a
legal product made in 1946. For more than 12 years a panel of
experts at the Agency for the Development of National Laws had
deliberated the new Criminal Code bill. In 1993, it was
reportedly completed but has not as yet been sent to the House of
Representatives for approval.

Nababan suggested that the Criminal Code be partially revised
by removing or replacing articles considered obsolete, such as
articles 154 and 155.

Moerad, head of the Department of Criminal Law at Padjadjaran
University's School of Law, said that articles 154 and 155
contradicted the climate of independence in the country.

Ideally, an independent country should promote a conducive
climate that allows different ideas to boost democracy,
especially in the reform era like this, Moerad said.

He regretted that the judges, who did not dare take a decision
and interpret the law differently from "a few parties".

"Maybe it is politically loaded. I don't know because I'm not
a political expert. But in the field of law, we should implement
it without considering the interests of certain people."

Yogyakarta-based lawyer Kamal Firdaus of the Indonesian Court
Monitoring's Executive Board had a different idea.

He said that the sentence, which was two months less than the
sentence requested by the prosecutor, was too light.

"In my view as a lawyer, many cases can be found in Indonesia
where legal supremacy has been placed under the supremacy of
politics or social issues," he told the Post.

"The Nazar case happened in Aceh province. I can understand
why the judges decided to sentence him to 10 months in prison.
They took into account nonjudiciary considerations to sentence
Nazar less than defendants in similar cases in the country," said
Kamal.

"The judges in Banda Aceh might be facing strong pressure from
the public or something," he said.

Meanwhile in Jakarta on Thursday, dozens of Acehnese and SIRA
activists entered their third day of protest by staying overnight
in front of the Netherlands Embassy on Jl. HR Rasuna Said,
Kuningan, South Jakarta.

"We demand that the Netherlands sponsor a vote on self-
determination in Aceh. History records that we (Aceh) won the war
over Dutch colonialism back in 1873," Jakarta's SIRA coordinator
Faisal Saifudin told the media.

He said that the sentence imposed on Nazar "was proof of an
undemocratic system and a violation of freedom of expression".

He also said that Nazar's defense lawyers were ready to appeal
the sentence.

The protesting group also made speeches, demanding the planned
security operation in Aceh be aborted.

"We have been trying to have a meeting with Dutch
representatives here about our demand but to no avail," said
Mirza, the group's spokesman.

He said the group would continue its protest until its members
met with a Dutch representative. (edt/23/25/sim)